He knew what
were the circumstances which had induced the baron to leave it.
He had been in the country to which the baron had emigrated. He
was able to refer familiarly to persons and localities, at home
and abroad, with which the baron was sure to be acquainted. And,
lastly, he had an expatriation of fifteen years to plead for him
as his all-sufficient excuse, if he made any slight mistakes
before the baron's sisters, in his assumed character of their
long-absent brother. It will be, of course, hardly necessary for
me to tell you, in relation to this part of the subject, that the
true Franval was immediately and honorably reinstated in the
family rights of which the impostor had succeeded for a time in
depriving him.
According to Monbrun's own account, he had married poor Rosamond
purely for love; and the probabilities certainly are, that the
pretty, innocent English girl had really struck the villain's
fancy for the time; and that the easy, quiet life he was leading
at the Grange pleased him, by contrast with his perilous and
vagabond existence of former days. What might have happened if he
had had time enough to grow wearied of his ill-fated wife and his
English home, it is now useless to inquire. What really did
happen on the morning when he awoke after the flight of Ida and
her sister can be briefly told.
As soon as his eyes opened they rested on the police agent,
sitting quietly by the bedside, with a loaded pistol in his hand.
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