Mr. Widdicombe appeared surprised.
"I was under the impression," he began, taking off his glasses and wiping the lenses on his enormous silk handkerchief, "that you were informed. He was—well, an associate of the late viscount's in Melanesia."
"No," she returned, "I was not informed. I fancied at the moment you alluded to Miss Scripps."
At this the solicitor brightened. "Ah, then you are informed concerning Miss Scripps. I am glad of that. I feared that, perhaps, you were not; which would make my mission the more embarrassing."
"I know that Lord Kneedrock visited and corresponded with a young lady of that name in Dundee, and I have always imagined that he was rather seriously attached to her."
And now Mr. Widdicombe looked surprised again.
"Then you don't know all?" he questioned, rubbing his lenses more vigorously.
"All?" she repeated. "Is there any more?"
The solicitor hesitated in apparent indecision.
"There is very much more," he said at length. "You know and I know—though the world doesn't—that the late viscount was, and yet after a fashion was not, a married man."