"Yes, hoped. I've seen them together, Mr. Lester, and it seemed to me an ideal attachment. I can conceive of nothing which could keep them apart. Has any explanation of it occurred to you?"
"Only one," I said, "that Miss Lawrence has been married before, but thought her husband dead, and discovered that he was still alive only at the last moment."
But the clergyman shook his head.
"You don't know Miss Lawrence?" he asked.
"No," I answered.
"You would see the absurdity of such a theory if you did."
"I fancied it might have happened when she was very young," I explained; "when she was abroad, perhaps. I've even pictured the man to myself as an adventurer, French or Italian, a man of the world, polished, without heart, perhaps even base at bottom—a man who would not hesitate to take advantage of her girlish innocence."
My companion smiled faintly.
"I see you have a lively imagination, Mr. Lester," he said. "Don't let it run away with you."
"She would not be the first to succumb to such a one," I retorted.