“He is going to London—going, I fear, on a vain search.”
“That may not be also. Come, we must hope for the best.”
But John Temple only sadly shook his head. It remained his fixed idea that May was dead, as he believed she had loved him too well to live apart from him.
But he felt grateful to Mrs. Temple for her kindness and consideration for his feelings; grateful perhaps that she had spared him telling May’s father all the bitter truth. And Mrs. Temple told the same story to her mother. Mrs. Layton, we may be sure, was not long in arriving at the Hall, but her daughter would not allow her to see John Temple.
“You worry him, and he and his wife have quarreled about some old love of his or other, and she has actually left him,” she said.
“Left him!” cried Mrs. Layton, triumphantly. “I knew no good would come of it; no good ever does come of unequal marriages. But I don’t believe she has left him; I believe he has left her.”
Mrs. Temple shrugged her shoulders.
“At all events they have parted,” she said; “and naturally he does not wish to be asked any questions on the subject, so while he is here please do not come.”
Mrs. Layton drew her meager little form up to its full height.