"Perhaps it is so. I have seen very little of her since she married that—that—I mean since she married Captain Mason."
"She told me something last night that surprised me."
"What was it?"
"She said that you had loved her before she accepted Captain Mason, and that she refused you."
"Ah, she told you that; and did her ladyship tell you why she took Mason instead of me?"
"Because you was a third or second mate, I forget which, and he was a captain; that was the reason she gave—but you speak as if it were true."
"Well, when I say that I had never been to sea in my life when John Mason married Ellen Palmer, you'll probably believe this nonsense."
"Then it was not true!" cried Katharine, smiling happily the first time that day.
"When women boast of their conquests, they seldom are true, Kate."
"But how unfeeling to say all this to me, your wife!"