"I am sure you have."
"Ah! yes. I did not suffer less because he had been unkind to me." And she put her handkerchief to her eyes, and then brought her hand again upon his arm. "But tell me of her—your one. She is not your one now—is she, Mr. Bertram?"
"No, Annie; not now."
"Is she—?" And she hesitated to ask whether the lady were dead, or married to some one else. It might, after all, only be a lovers' quarrel.
"I drove her from me—and now she is a wife."
"Drove her from you! Alas! alas!" said Mrs. Cox, with the sweetest emphasis of sympathy. But the result of her inquiries was not unsatisfactory to her.
"I don't know why I should have told you this," said he.
"I am so glad you have," she replied.
"But now that I have told you—"
"Well—"