“No, perhaps not,” said Io slowly, looking down as she spoke; and as she did so her eyes fell on the little packet of Oscar’s letters which he had laid down on her writing-table whilst speaking of Thud. The address on the uppermost of those letters made Io start and flush to her temples. It was directed to Mrs. Mortimer.
“Who is she?” exclaimed Io, impatience and indignation forcing out the words against her will.
Oscar looked at his wife with surprise. “She is my more than friend,” he replied. “You must often have heard of her from me.”
“I never heard the name from your lips,” exclaimed Io.
“What! not heard of my mother’s old friend, my godmother—she who wrote to you so warmly after our engagement?”
“That was Mrs. Winter, the dear, sweet lady who nursed you through the small-pox when you were quite a little child.”
“Mrs. Winter and Mrs. Mortimer are one. I must have forgotten to tell you of her second marriage, which took place when I was last in Moulmein. My friend married a cousin of her own who was going, in a state of hopeless consumption, to Malta. Mrs. Winter married him in order to be able to go with the dying sufferer and nurse him to the last.”
“O Oscar, what a fool I have been!” exclaimed Io, bursting into tears; but the tears were those of relief, and shed on the bosom of her husband.
“And can it be,” said Oscar, in a tone of gentle reproach, “that my Io for one moment thought me so base, so utterly worthless, as to be even in thought faithless to her to whom I had pledged my troth? Could you not trust me, Io?”
Io, very penitently, took her husband’s hand and kissed it passionately. “Oh, forgive me, forgive me!” she sobbed; “we should never, never doubt one whom we love.”