“You mean Caroline Avondale?” said Captain Dornton dryly.
Randolph colored. “No; I mean Miss Eversleigh, who was with your brother.”
Captain Dornton reflected. “To be sure! Sibyl Eversleigh! I haven't seen her since she was so high. I used to call her my little sweetheart. So Sybby remembered Cousin Jack and came to find him? But when did you meet her?” he asked suddenly, as if this was the only detail of the past which had escaped him, fixing his frank eyes upon Randolph.
The young man recounted at some length the dinner party at Dingwall's, his conversation with Miss Eversleigh, and his interview with Sir William, but spoke little of Miss Avondale. To his surprise, the captain listened smilingly, and only said: “That was like Billy to take a rise out of you by pretending you were suspected. That's his way—a little rough when you don't know him and he's got a little grog amidships. All the same, I'd have given something to have heard him 'running' you, when all the while you had the biggest bulge on him, only neither of you knew it.” He laughed again, until Randolph, amazed at his levity and indifference, lost his patience.
“Do you know,” he said bluntly, “that they don't believe you were legally married?”
But Captain Dornton only continued to laugh, until, seeing his companion's horrified face, he became demure. “I suppose Bill didn't, for Bill had sense enough to know that otherwise he would have to take a back seat to Bobby.”
“But did Miss Avondale know you were legally married, and that your son was the heir?” asked Randolph bluntly.
“She had no reason to suspect otherwise, although we were married secretly. She was an old friend of my wife, not particularly of mine.”
Randolph sat back amazed and horrified. Those were HER own words. Or was this man deceiving him as the others had?
But the captain, eying him curiously, but still amusedly, added: “I even thought of bringing her as one of my witnesses, until”—