“No.”
“Nor who recommended her to your wife?”
“No.”
“Probably Lady Jane Horton?”
“It may be so.
“Very likely.”
“I will follow up this track, slight as it is.”
“But if Mrs. Bertram received the communication, how comes it that it never reached myself—Oh, fool that I am, how should it! I, who guarded so carefully my incognito!”
“True. This your wife could not foresee; she would naturally imagine that your residence in England would be easily discovered. But many years must have passed since your wife lost sight of this Mrs. Bertram, if their acquaintance was made so soon after your marriage; and now it is a long time to retrace,—before even your Violante was born.”
“Alas! yes. I lost two fair sons in the interval. Violante was born to me as the child of sorrow.”