"No, I was glad by a promise to relieve his poor troubled mind, and my knowledge of women made it easy."
"Grant me still another question. I am not, I need scarcely say, actuated by mere idle curiosity?"
"Any question you like, Douglas."
"Have you never met a woman who has caused you to regret your promise."
"Never!"
But a new and strange feeling stirred his heart-strings, that perhaps, had he met the child Vaura, now the woman, he could not answer so. There was a pause on his answering Douglas, with the single word—"Never."
"It is due to you, that I should give a reason for my questions. My son, Roland, writes me, that the story of your elopement with Fanny Clarmont, has been revived, and with a good deal of vim and sensation as to her being your hidden wife thrown in."
"Indeed," said Trevalyon, carelessly, "what a dearth of scandal there must be in Dame Rumour's budget, that she must needs revive one of a dozen years ago."
"Ah," thought the rector, "what a pity it is true." But not so
Haughton, who, starting to a sitting posture, said excitedly:
"You take it too coolly, Trevalyon, stamp it out at once, and for ever! you know, you never married her."