CHAPTER XL.

CONCLUSION.

The bolt of Fate falls sometimes like a flash of lightning from a clear

sky.

Thus it came to Mrs. Ellsworth and her scheming nieces in the moment

when they felt themselves most secure.

On that golden May evening, when Love Ellsworth found his happiness

again, they had been busy laying their plans for a summer campaign.

They decided to take an early trip to Europe, and return in August for a

brief tour of the watering-places before the close of the season.

"We will get us some loves of dresses and bonnets while in Paris," cried

Ela, while Olive added:

"And some rare jewels. I think I should like some fine rubies best of

all."

With a slight sarcasm, Mrs. Ellsworth exclaimed:

"Really, for two young girls who were reared in poverty, you two have

developed very extravagant tastes--so extravagant that I could not

afford to gratify them if I had not so opportunely come into my

step-son's fortune!"

"But, Aunt Judith, we thought you were quite wealthy in your own right,"

both cried in concert.

"So I was; but for years I have speculated in stocks, and sometimes I

made large gains, at others lost heavily. To-day I received notice of a

terrible loss by the failure of a bank in Richmond in which the residue

of my money was invested. Had I not come into Love's money, I should

not now have a thousand dollars to my name!"

"How unfortunate!" cried a ringing, sarcastic voice, and glancing up,

all three beheld Lovelace Ellsworth standing before them in his right

mind.

He was accompanied by the party that he had brought from the station,

and on his arm leaned his drooping bride, pale from illness, but with

the light of her joy shining in her great luminous eyes. Black mammy

brought up the rear with the lovely infant in her arms.

To Mrs. Ellsworth's consternation all seated themselves as coolly as if

they had a right in her elegant parlor, while Olive and Ela strained

their eyes in horror at the fair cousin whose ashes they had believed to

be lying still beneath the _debris_ of the burned cabin.

Lovelace Ellsworth alone remained standing, and turning toward his

startled step-mother, he began one of the most scathing arraignments to

which any one had ever listened.

He told her in fiery words of all the crimes and cruelties she had

practised on himself and Dainty, and how, through God's help, they had

escaped all.

In vain were her frightened denials; he laughed them all to scorn.

"When Dainty was immured in that dungeon where you expected her to die,

your tool, Sheila Kelly, threw caution to the winds, and betrayed to her

in boastful words your agency in her kidnapping. It is not your fault

that my wife did not die of the poison you gave her to swallow, but only

that the wind and rain revived her when she lay out in the road where

you had her placed, believing her dead, with her lips sealed to your