“Dear Lady Lundie, it’s not that!  Have you heard nothing about Mr. Brinkworth except what you have just told me?”

“Nothing.”

There was a pause.  Mrs. Glenarm toyed hesitatingly with her parasol.  Lady Lundie leaned forward in the bed, and looked at her attentively.

“What have you heard about him?” she asked.

Mrs. Glenarm was embarrassed.  “It’s so difficult to say,” she began.

“I can bear any thing but suspense,” said Lady Lundie.  “Tell me the worst.”

Mrs. Glenarm decided to risk it.  “Have you never heard,” she asked, “that Mr. Brinkworth might possibly have committed himself with another lady before he married Miss Lundie?”

Her ladyship first closed her eyes in horror and then searched blindly on the counterpane for the smelling-bottle.  Mrs. Glenarm gave it to her, and waited to see how the invalid bore it before she said any more.

“There are things one must hear,” remarked Lady Lundie.  “I see an act of duty involved in this.  No words can describe how you astonish me.  Who told you?”

“Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn told me.”

Her ladyship applied for the second time to the smelling-bottle.  “Arnold Brinkworth’s most intimate friend!” she exclaimed.  “He ought to know if any body does.  This is dreadful.  Why should Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn tell you?”

“I am going to marry him,” answered Mrs. Glenarm.  “That is my excuse, dear Lady Lundie, for troubling you in this matter.”

Lady Lundie partially opened her eyes in a state of faint bewilderment.  “I don’t understand,” she said.  “For Heaven’s sake explain yourself!”

“Haven’t you heard about the anonymous letters?” asked Mrs. Glenarm.

Yes.  Lady Lundie had heard about the letters.  But only what the public in general had heard.  The name of the lady in the background not mentioned; and Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn assumed to be as innocent as the babe unborn.  Any mistake in that assumption?  “Give me your hand, my poor dear, and confide it all to me!”

“He is not quite innocent,” said Mrs. Glenarm.  “He owned to a foolish flirtation—­all her doing, no doubt.  Of course, I insisted on a distinct explanation.  Had she really any claim on him?  Not the shadow of a claim.  I felt that I only had his word for that—­and I told him so.  He said he could prove it—­he said he knew her to be privately married already.  Her husband had disowned and deserted her; she was at the end of her resources; she was desperate enough to attempt any thing.  I thought it all very suspicious—­until Geoffrey mentioned the man’s name. That certainly proved that he had cast off his wife; for I myself knew that he had lately married another person.”

Lady Lundie suddenly started up from her pillow—­honestly agitated; genuinely alarmed by this time.

“Mr. Delamayn told you the man’s name?” she said, breathlessly.