"What does it mean?" she asked Durban, but making no attempt to follow the man.
"I know no more than you do, missy."
"Durban," said Beatrice, entering the kitchen and taking a seat, "you have kept me in the dark long enough. You ran away just as this man has done, when I asked you about the Obi necklace. Now you must speak out, as I am leaving Hurstable."
"Leaving this place, missy?" said Durban, startled. "Are you not to marry Mr. Paslow?"
"How can I marry him when he has a wife living?"
Durban did not seem to be so surprised at this news as she expected. "So you have found that out, missy?" he said slowly.
"You knew about it?"
"Yes, I knew; but I thought--I thought that she was dead."
"No. She pretended to die, for her own purposes. In fact she intended, in that way, to get rid of Vivian, and marry an American millionaire. But she is alive,--her double was buried."
"Miss Arthur!" cried the servant quickly.