"Of course," he said, after a moment, "the most obvious explanation is that Endicott deserted her; and yet that would have been so unlike him, for he was not a vicious or selfish fellow, Mr. Lester, but generous, honourable, warm-hearted, despite his other faults, which were merely, I think, faults of youth. I've never believed that he deserted her. Perhaps, at the last moment, her courage failed; or perhaps there was a mistake of some sort, a misunderstanding which kept them apart."
I pondered it for a moment, then put it aside. That was not the mystery I had set myself to solve.
"Well, Miss Jarvis evidently got over it," I remarked, "since she afterwards became Mrs. Lawrence."
"That is one way of looking at it," he assented; "but I've always thought that she was so far from getting over it that she never greatly cared what became of her afterwards."
"Was it so bad as that?"
"It was as bad as it could possibly be. She did not return from Scotland for two years and more. It was about a year later that she married Lawrence, who was a business associate of her father, and lived here at Elizabeth. I had been called to the pastorate of the church here and performed the ceremony."
"Lawrence must have been considerably older than she, then," I suggested.
"Oh, much older. He was a widower, without children. I always fancied that her father had arranged the match. He had completely broken down, and knew he hadn't long to live."
"And there was only one child of this marriage?"
"Only one—Marcia."