“If I can come, sir,” said the woman; “but it is very difficult. The Commodore is always about; nothing escapes him.”
“A scoundrel!”
“I don’t think he is such a very bad man,” said the woman.
“Indeed! Ah, women always find an excuse for a good-looking scoundrel!”
“I don’t think a man who is faithful to the woman he loved can be very bad,” said the voice, softly.
“Faithful! why, I suppose he has a dozen wives here?”
“He! Oh, no! I don’t know, sir, exactly, but I have seen him go to the old chamber in one of these ruinous places, and he goes there to pray by the side of a coffin.”
“What!” cried Humphrey.
“Yes, a coffin; and it contains the body of the woman he loved, or else of his sister. No one here knows but Dinny and Bart, and—”
“Hist!” whispered Humphrey, catching up a bunch of grapes and beginning to eat them.