Read "The Fatal Three, Volume II" by Mary Elizabeth Braddon online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
George Greswold was not the kind of man to sit down in idle submission to Fate under a great wrong or under a great loss. A feeling of blank despair had come upon him after his interview with Mrs. Bell, in the solitude of those deserted rooms where every object spoke to him of his wife's absence-where the influence of her mind and fancy was a part of the very atmosphere: so much so that in spite of her farewell letter in his breast-pocket he started every now and then from his reverie, fancying he heard her footstep in the corridor, or her voice in an adjoining room.
His conversation with Bell had brought him little comfort, but it had not convinced him of the evil in which his wife so firmly believed. There was little doubt in his mind that the woman he had married eighteen years ago was identical with Mildred's young companion and John Fausset's _protégée_. But whether that mysterious _protégée_ had been John Fausset's daughter was a question open to doubt. The suspicions of a jealous wife, the opinions of the servants' hall, were no conclusive proof.