“And her name is—”
“Mrs. John; rather a strange name, isn’t it, sir?”
“Mrs. John,” repeated Henderson, beneath his breath, but he did nothing more. He understood it all now; she had run away with John Temple, and was called Mrs. John, and he needed no further information.
He forgot all about the bonnet for his mother until the shopwoman reminded him of it.
“Choose what you like,” he said, “the lady is elderly—my mother—and a widow.”
“But does she wear a widow’s bonnet, sir?”
“I think not,” answered Henderson, indifferently. “Something dark and good—what will it cost?”
This matter was soon settled. The shopwoman chose a bonnet, and Henderson paid for it, and then drove back straight to his hotel. When he arrived there he at once addressed the following letter to Mrs. Temple:
“Dear Mrs. Temple: You were quite right. May Churchill is living at the address you gave me in Pembridge Terrace, and is called Mrs. John. I saw her leave the house and go into a shop, accompanied by an old woman. I went into the shop after they left it, and one of the girls there told me that she—May—was a Mrs. John, and that she was a newly-married woman, which I greatly doubt. I shall return to Stourton to-day, and go to-morrow morning with my news to Woodside Farm. May’s father shall know how his daughter has been treated. And I remain,
“Yours sincerely,