"Then maybe, Mr. Gordon, you are going to be married?"
"You can omit the 'maybe,'" he laughed.
"Well, I should never have thought it!" she exclaimed.
"Time brings in his revenges," said he.
"The way you three gentlemen used to rail at women! Well, there!"
"But, then, they weren't women. They were Aunt Sallies of our own contriving--mere pasteboard. We were young and we didn't know."
Mrs. Jackson inquired the date and place of the ceremony. At Keswick, she was told, and in a week's time. She floated out garrulous on a tide of sentiment. She hoped that Mr. Gordon's two friends would follow his example and find out their mistake, not noticing the shadow which her words brought to her lodger's face. She dropped the name of Hawke and the shadow deepened.
"I rather fancy," he said abruptly, "that Mr. Hawke found out the mistake at exactly the same time as I did myself."
Mrs. Jackson was a quick woman, and she took his meaning from the inflection of his voice.
"He was your rival!"