“Yes—there are no men here, and Brook can’t be a witness, because he’s interested. You and Mrs. Bowring will do very well. But there’s another thing—rather an extraordinary thing—and I won’t let you sign with her until you know it. It’s not a very easy thing to tell you, my dear.”
Lady Johnstone shifted her fat hands and folded them again, and her frank blue eyes gazed at her husband for a moment.
“I can guess,” she said, with a good-natured smile. “You told me you were old friends—I suppose you were in love with her somewhere!” She laughed and shook her head. “I don’t mind,” she added. “It’s one more, that’s all—one that I didn’t know of. She’s a very nice woman, and I’ve taken the greatest fancy to her!”
“I’m glad you have,” said Sir Adam, gravely. “I say, my dear—don’t be surprised, you know—I warned you. We knew each other very well—it’s not what you think at all, and she was altogether in the right and I was quite in the wrong about it. I say, now—don’t be startled—she’s my divorced wife—that’s all.”
“She! Mrs. Bowring! Oh, Adam—how could you treat her so!”
Lady Johnstone leaned back in her chair and slowly turned her head till she could look out of the window. She was almost rosy with surprise—a change of colour in her sanguine complexion which was equivalent to extreme pallor in other persons. Sir Adam looked at her affectionately.
“What an awfully good woman you are!” he exclaimed, in genuine admiration.
“I! No, I’m not good at all. I was thinking that if you hadn’t been such a brute to her I could never have married you. I don’t suppose that is good, is it? But you were a brute, all the same, Adam, dear, to hurt such a woman as that!”
“Of course I was! I told you so when I told you the story. But I didn’t expect that you’d ever meet.”