Page:Violet - a vaudeville in four scenes (IA violetvaudeville00yapa).pdf/23



V. C. Pardon me for being so late Mrs. Barron, but it was on service de la Reine. I can speak before all of you plainly, for you all know what I mean and behold (holding up a paper). I triumph!

Well done, Schuyler! Read it.

No, I beg of you

V. C. It is for you to command—but at least you will let me say that I have traced step by step the malicious rumors about you.

Why, malicious, Mr. Van Cott!

V. C. Well, the falsehood then. From each successive person I forced the name of the next, and it was, indeed, no easy task in some instances to get an admission from the embroiderers. But by threats and promises, bringing fathers, mothers and brothers to help me, I finally reached the starting point and forced from that coward Congdon under threat of a horse-whipping a written statement of the origin of it all, and it only shows what an idle word by a married man to his wife may do.

The old saying:

Violet, you owe Schuyler thanks.

V. C. None; but to you who alone stood by her.