'I wonder he didn't say sposa,' said Charley.
'I never thought of that,' said Katie.
Mrs. Woodward and Linda looked at her, but Charley did not, and her blunder passed by unnoticed.
'Now that she is free from her matrimonial bonds, she is free also to tell the secret; and indeed the welfare both of the gentleman and of the lady imperiously demands that it should be told. Should he marry her, he is destined to learn it after his marriage; should he not marry her, he may hear it at any time. She sends for him and tells him, not the first of these facts, by doing which all difficulty would have at once been put an end to—'
'It is quite clear he has never read the story, quite clear,' said Charley.
'She tells him only the last, viz., that as they are now strangers he may know the secret; but that when once known it will raise a barrier between them that no years, no penance, no sorrow on his part, no tenderness on hers, can ever break down. She then asks him—will he hear the secret?'
'She does not ask any such thing,' said Charley; 'the letter that contains it has been already sent to him. She merely gives him an opportunity of returning it unopened.'
'The gentleman, who is not without a grain of obstinacy in his own composition and many grains of curiosity, declares it to be impossible that he can go to the altar in ignorance of facts which he is bound to know, and the lady, who seems to be of an affectionate disposition, falls in tenderness at his feet. She is indeed in a very winning mood, and quite inclined to use every means allowable to a lady for retaining her lover; every means that is short of that specially feminine one of telling her secret.
'We will give an extract from this love scene, partly for the sake of its grotesque absurdity—'
Charley kicked out another foot, as though he thought that the editor of the Daily Delight might perhaps be within reach.