"Have you heard the news?"
"No; what news? Any thing more about Mr. Guyon?"
"No; there's only one more event possible for him, and it is to take place on Thursday. Have you heard nothing of the Streightleys?"
"No; I called there to-day. What's the matter, Hester? is any thing wrong with Katharine?" His face was pale, and his voice hurried. Hester started at the word. Why did she not remember; why did she not take warning? Who can tell? It was but another illustration of "the letting in of water." In a harsh voice, through her set teeth, she answered him:
"Yes, there is something wrong with 'Katharine,' as you call her--something very wrong. The bubble has burst--she has run away from her husband!"
"Good God!" was Gordon's only answer; but the tone in which he uttered the exclamation angered Hester, and hardened her.
"Yes," she went on, "there is no doubt about it; I have it on the best authority--Mr. Streightley's own. She has left her husband at a nice time, too--on a proper filial occasion--when her father's dead body is unburied."
Gordon looked at her; and had she been wise she would have taken warning, she would have seen the dawning of a suspicion that she was different to that he had believed her, in that look, and paused before she flung into the gulf of a new and cruel passion the gem of all her treasures, whose pricelessness she knew well. But she was not wise, and she mistook the meaning of that look; she did not know that its sorrow and its misgiving were for her; she gave them to another, in her excited fancy, and she rushed upon her ruin.
"You are deeply concerned, Gordon, are you not, and very anxious to learn all the particulars? You shall hear all I know." He was standing close to her as she spoke, and they were looking steadily at one another.
"I am indeed, Hester," he replied mildly. "I trust there is some terrible mistake; tell me what you have heard."