You will, doubtless, want to hear now what happened at Glenwith Grange after Miss Welwyn and her sister had left it.  I have seen the letter which the police agent sent the next morning to Harleybrook; and, speaking from my recollection of that, I shall be able to relate all you can desire to know.

First, as to the past history of the scoundrel Monbrun, I need only tell you that he was identical with an escaped convict, who, for a long term of years, had successfully eluded the vigilance of the authorities all over Europe, and in America as well.  In conjunction with two accomplices, he had succeeded in possessing himself of large sums of money by the most criminal means.  He also acted secretly as the “banker” of his convict brethren, whose dishonest gains were all confided to his hands for safe-keeping.  He would have been certainly captured, on venturing back to France, along with his two associates, but for the daring imposture in which he took refuge; and which, if the true Baron Franval had really died abroad, as was reported, would, in all probability, never have been found out.

Besides his extraordinary likeness to the baron, he had every other requisite for carrying on his deception successfully.  Though his parents were not wealthy, he had received a good education.  He was so notorious for his gentleman-like manners among the villainous associates of his crimes and excesses, that they nicknamed him “the Prince.”  All his early life had been passed in the neighborhood of the Chateau Franval.  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.