"You have had a pleasant walk with Vernon—turning me in and out?"
"We did not speak of you. You allude to what he would never consent to."
"He's an honest fellow, in his old-fashioned way. He's a secret old fellow. Does he ever talk about his wife to you?"
Clara dropped her purse, and stooped and picked it up.
"I know nothing of Mr. Whitford's affairs," she said, and she opened the purse and tore to pieces the railway ticket.
"The story's a proof that romantic spirits do not furnish the most romantic history. You have the word 'chivalry' frequently on your lips. He chivalrously married the daughter of the lodging-house where he resided before I took him. We obtained information of the auspicious union in a newspaper report of Mrs. Whitford's drunkenness and rioting at a London railway terminus—probably the one whither your ticket would have taken you yesterday, for I heard the lady was on her way to us for supplies, the connubial larder being empty."
"I am sorry; I am ignorant; I have heard nothing; I know nothing," said
Clara.
"You are disgusted. But half the students and authors you hear of marry in that way. And very few have Vernon's luck."
"She had good qualities?" asked Clara.
Her under lip hung.