"Good-morning, Ishmael! I saw you walking here from my window and came out to join you."
"Oh, good-morning, Mr. Brudenell!" exclaimed the young man, turning with a glad smile to meet the elder one.
Mr. Brudenell took the arm of Ishmael, and, leaning rather heavily on it, joined him in his walk.
"I know why Judge Merlin and yourself are going to England," he said.
"I thought you did. But I could not, and cannot now, conceive how you should have found out; since we ourselves knew nothing about the unfortunate affair until a day or two since; and it is one of a strictly private and domestic nature," replied Ishmael.
"Strictly private and domestic? Why, Ishmael, it may have been so in the beginning; but now it is public and patent. All England is ringing with the affair. It is the last sensation story that the reporters have got hold of. It was from the London papers received by the last mail that I learned the news," said Mr. Brudenell, taking from his pocket the "Times," "Post," and "Chronicle."
Ishmael hastily glanced over the accounts of the affair as contained in each of these. But though the articles were long and wordy they afforded him no new information.
They told him what he already knew; that the Viscount Vincent had filed a petition for divorce from his viscountess on the ground of infidelity; that the lady was the daughter of an American chief- justice; that she was a beauty and an heiress; that Lord Vincent had formed her acquaintance at the President's house during his official visit to Washington; that he had married her during the past summer; and after an extended bridal tour had brought her in October to Castle Cragg, when the suspicions that led to subsequent discovery and ultimate separation were first aroused, etc., etc., etc.
"All that is very unsatisfactory. I wish we knew the suspicious circumstances," said Mr. Brudenell.
"I believe there were no suspicious circumstances. I believe the whole affair to be a conspiracy against Lady Vincent," said Ishmael.