'I had a long and most heart-rending interview with her,' said Martin, 'part of which it appears you saw. I had to break to her that the man whom she supposed to be her husband, and whom she loved with all the strength and fidelity of her girlish nature, was dead--that was enough for once. I had not the heart--I had not the courage even to tell her that he was not her husband, but her betrayer; a being whose memory should be loathed and abhorred, rather than worshipped.'
'There was no necessity for that just now,' said Pauline; 'that announcement can be made later on, and then can be made more quietly and delicately. What else did you say?'
'I told her when I left her that I would return and take her to London, to-night.'
'To London! To what part of London?'
'To Mrs. Calverley's house, where I was compelled to tell her--her husband's body was lying. Of course she had heard of Mr. Calverley as her husband's partner, and with this explanation she seemed content.'
'Ah, poor creature!' cried Pauline, 'She does not know, then, that the body has already been buried?'
'No, I did not tell her that, and fortunately she did not ask me the date of the death.'
'And when you made this promise, may I ask what plan was in your mind?'
'My idea was,' said Martin, blushing somewhat as the vagueness of this same idea dawned upon him; 'my idea was, to go to a friend of mine named Statham, a very clever man, kind-hearted, and with a vast knowledge of the world, who has already helped me in this business, and indeed has seen Mrs.--the young woman I mean--and first gave me the notion that she was not what one might have imagined she would have been.'
'O, indeed,' said Pauline, eyeing him closely, 'this Mr. Statham has seen the poor lady, and finds her thus?'