'But I suppose,' continued she, 'you have heard the whole story, though the unhappy event occurred when you were a mere child.'
'I am not aware to what you allude,' said I eagerly, while a suspicion shot across my mind that the secret of Sir Simon Bellow's letter was at length to be cleared up.
'Ah,' said Mrs. Rooney with a sigh, 'I mean poor dear Lady Bellow's affair—when she went away with a major of dragoons; and to be sure an elegant young man he was, they said. Pole was on the inquest, and I heard him say he was the handsomest man he ever saw in his life.'
'He died suddenly, then?'
'He was shot by Sir Simon in a duel the very day-week after the elopement.'
'And she?' said I.
'Poor thing! she died of a consumption, or some say a broken heart, the same summer.'
'That is a sad story, indeed,' said I musingly; 'and I no longer wonder that the poor old man should be such as he is.'
'No, indeed; but then he was very much blamed after all, for he never had that Jerningham out of the house.'
'Horace Jerningham!' cried I, as a cold sickening fear crept over me.