If the plan
succeeded, and you were deceived and took me here, thinking me the true
Ida, they believed that I would be secured a life of happiness and
luxury. They had seen, too, how you were in love with the true Ida, and
made no question that you would love me and marry me.
"It was that more than all, Paul, that decided me to do it. I had fallen
in love with you that night of the first seance when I stood before you
and you looked at me with such boundless, adoring love. I think it would
have turned almost any girl's head to be looked at in that way. And then,
Paul, you are very handsome.
"I always had a taste for acting. They used to say I would have done well
on the stage, and the idea of playing a role so fine and so bold as this
took my fancy from the start. It was that, Paul, that, and the notion of
your making love to me, more than any thought of the wealth and luxury I
might get a share in, which made me consent to the plan.
"That sickness of Mrs. Legrand's between the seances--I am telling you
all, Paul--was only a sham, so that we might see how much in earnest you
were, and to get time for me to learn by heart all mother could teach me
about the Hilton of forty years ago and Miss Ludington's girlhood.
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