“Ah!”
Only that interjection, but it meant so much in words—and acts, one of which resulted in the fair young girl pointing to the chair from which Guest had risen, and saying, with a little flush in her cheeks:
“Suppose somebody had come into the room. Sit down, please, Mr Guest.”
He obeyed.
“Now come; help me,” he said. “We must forgive poor old Malcolm, whatever it is; and one of these days perhaps, someone else will.”
“No, never: that is impossible.”
“But what can he have done?”
“I don’t know, unless he has been married before, and killed his wife so as to get married again.”
Guest looked at her in horror, and she turned scarlet.
“I—I beg your pardon,” she stammered. “I did not mean that.”