“It depends on you to decide that,” Randal replied.

“How very complimentary to a poor useless old woman!  Don’t be mysterious, my dear.  I don’t belong to the generation which raises storms in tea-cups, and calls skirmishes with savages battles.  Out with it!”

Randal handed his paper to her, open at the right place.  “There is my news,” he said.

Mrs. Presty looked at the paragraph, and handed her newspaper to Randal.

“I am indeed sorry to spoil your dramatic effect,” she said.  “But you ought to have known that we are only half an hour behind you, at Sydenham, in the matter of news.  The report is premature, my good friend.  But if these newspaper people waited to find out whether a report is true or false, how much gossip would society get in its favorite newspapers?  Besides, if it isn’t true now, it will be true next week.  The author only says, ‘It’s whispered.’  How delicate of him!  What a perfect gentleman!”

“Am I really to understand, Mrs. Presty, that Catherine—­”

“You are to understand that Catherine is a widow.  I say it with pride, a widow of my making!”

“If this is one of your jokes, ma’am—­”

“Nothing of the sort, sir.”

“Are you aware, Mrs. Presty, that my brother—­”

“Oh, don’t talk of your brother!  He’s an obstacle in our way, and we have been compelled to get rid of him.”

Randal drew back a step.  Mrs. Presty’s audacity was something more than he could understand.  “Is this woman mad?” he said to himself.

“Sit down,” said Mrs. Presty.  “If you are determined to make a serious business of it—­if you insist on my justifying myself—­you are to be pitied for not possessing a sense of humor, but you shall have your own way.  I am put on my defense.  Very well.  You shall hear how my divorced daughter and my poor little grandchild were treated at Sandyseal, after you left us.”

Having related the circumstances, she suggested that Randal should put himself in Catherine’s place, before he ventured on expressing an opinion.  “Would you have exposed yourself to be humiliated again in the same way?” she asked.  “And would you have seen your child made to suffer as well as yourself?”

“I should have kept in retirement for the future,” he answered, “and not have trusted my child and myself among strangers in hotels.”

“Ah, indeed?  And you would have condemned your poor little daughter to solitude?  You would have seen her pining for the company of other children, and would have had no mercy on her?  I wonder what you would have done when Captain Bennydeck paid us a visit at the seaside?  He was introduced to Mrs. Norman, and to Mrs. Norman’s little girl, and we were all charmed with him.  When he and I happened to be left together he naturally wondered, after having seen the beautiful wife, where the lucky husband might be.  If he had asked you about Mr. Norman, how would you have answered him?”