Old William looked at her for a minute, and then said,
"I am a plain-spoken man, Mrs. Ludlow--for you are Mrs. Ludlow to me--as I daresay you may have heard, if you have not noticed it yourself; and I tell you plainly that it is out of no kindness to you that I am here now, but only out of love for my dear old friend."
"I can understand that," said Margaret; "and only respect you the more for it; and now you are here, Mr. Bowker, I shall be very glad to say a few words to you,--the last I shall ever say regarding that portion of my life which was passed in--at--You know what I would say; you have heard the story of the commencement of my acquaintance with Geoffrey Ludlow?"
Bowker bowed in acquiescence.
"You know how I left him--why I am here?"
Then William Bowker--the memory of all his friend's trouble and misery and crushed hopes and wasted life rising up strongly within him--set his face hard, and said, between his clenched teeth, "I know your history from two sources. Yesterday, Geoffrey Ludlow, scarce able to raise himself in his bed, so weak was he from the illness which your conduct brought upon him, told me, as well as he could, of his first meeting with you, his strange courtship, his marriage,--at which I was present,--of his hopes and fears, and all the intricacies of his married life; of the manner in which, finally, you revealed the history of your previous life, and parted from him. Supplementing this story, he gave me to read a letter from Lord Caterham, the brother of the man you call your husband. This man, Captain Brakespere, flying from the country, had written to his brother, informing him that he had left behind him a woman who was called his mistress, but who was in reality his wife. To find this woman Lord Caterham made his care. He set the detectives to work, and had her tracked from place to place; continually getting news of, but never finding her. While he lived, Lord Caterham never slackened from the pursuit; finding his end approaching--"
"His end approaching!--the end of his life do you mean?"
"He is dead. But before he died, he delegated the duty of pursuit, of all men in the world, to Geoffrey Ludlow,--to Geoffrey Ludlow, who, in his blind ignorance, had stumbled upon the very woman a year before, had saved her from a miserable death, and, all unknowingly, had fondly imagined he had made her his loving wife."
"Ah, my God, this is too much! And Geoffrey Ludlow knows all this?"
"From Geoffrey Ludlow's lips I heard it not twenty-four hours since."