"How did you know that?" asked Sir Percy.
"Partly by observation and partly by a clever guess. I have been staying in the same house with the Prime Minister, and quite naturally we spoke of you. I told him that we were old friends."
As she said the last two words Sir Percy Carlyon turned away his head and a dull flush dyed his sunburnt face.
"However, those are matters really of prescience. I was very young when we loved, but even then I knew that some day you would be a great, if not a famous, man."
"I am neither," responded Sir Percy, taking refuge in commonplace.
Then there was silence again for a time. The firelight played over Mrs. Vernon's face and figure and the masses of pale blue draperies, and over the tip of her pale blue slippers, upon which stones sparkled. Her eyes were fixed upon Sir Percy, and, raising herself in her chair, she leaned over towards him and said calmly:
"Guy Vernon, you know, has been dead more than a year."
Sir Percy knew what she meant--that she was now free.
"I had not heard it," he replied with equal calmness. "I hope that your latter days with him were happier than the earlier ones."
"I had not seen or spoken with him for several years. We had much unhappiness together. If I had been happily married----"