"That is your husband that's been murdered? Oh, you poor dear! What an awful thing!" But her sympathy was not commensurate with her curiosity. "And you divorced him, I suppose, and he repented and left you some of his money, and now they want to know where you are so that they can hand it over to you. That's the something to your advantage, I suppose. Will you go and see about it to-day?"
The rapidity with which Lucille invented an entire story to fit in with her views of probabilities bewildered Lavender.
"Oh, no," she said; "that isn't it at all. They must never know where I am. They must think I am dead, as I always thought he was when I—married again."
A glimmer of comprehension dawned in Lucille's face.
"You thought him dead when you married Mr. Sinclair, and he wasn't?"
Lavender nodded assent.
"I ran away from him and heard nothing of him, and thought he must be dead or he would have found me out and compelled me to go back to him again. And after seven years I thought I was free to marry again, and I married Mr. Sinclair. It was only the other day I learned that I was not free and that my marriage with Mr. Sinclair wasn't really any marriage. And now if they find out that I am Lady Holt, I may be prosecuted for bigamy; in any case, there will be a frightful scandal, and as I was never legally Mr. Sinclair's wife I shall lose all the money he left me and be ruined as well."
"Oh!" said Lucille slowly. "Of course they must never know."
"You won't betray me, will you?" said Lavender piteously.
"Betray you, my poor dear?" cried Lucille. "Whatever are you thinking of to suppose that I would betray anything that could do you harm?" She stroked Lavender's hand with fond tenderness, and Lavender turned upon her face and cried; the womanly sympathy was just what she needed at this moment, and scarcely any sympathy is so generous and full as that bestowed upon us by faithful and loyal servants. "No," said Lucille, "it's only because you've been run down and ill that such a thought could get into your head. You are safe so far as I am concerned. Besides, now both your husbands are dead, what affair is it of anybody's who or what you are? They'll never find you out after all these years. They wouldn't advertise if there were any other way of getting at you, and as for the something to your advantage, if you don't choose to go after it I don't suppose this Mr. Tracy will raise any objections; at least, he'll be unlike most of the lawyers I've ever heard of if he does."