In terror lest he should have recognised her, the girl turned abruptly from him and hurried towards the door. Before she could reach it he had arrested her steps by laying his hand on her arm.
"I beg your pardon," he stammered, "but just for one moment you looked so strangely like some one I once knew—my wife, in fact—a worthless hussy, who deserted me on our wedding-day. I meant to treat her well, for I liked her, and she might have made something of me if she had tried; but she was a true daughter of her father, and bad to the core. For just an instant, though, you looked so like her that it was quite startling."
During this speech Laline had had full time to recover her self-possession.
"Thank you," she said, with glacial politeness. "From your description it is hardly flattering to be likened to such a person. Your uncle and your cousin must have been misinformed. They told me that your wife was an orphan when you first met her, and that she died, deeply regretted, of typhoid fever about a month after your marriage."
He gazed at her curiously, still with his hand on her arm.
"So that is the story you heard—eh?" he remarked. "I said my wife bolted from me on her wedding-day; but I never said I didn't get her back, did I? As to the 'deeply-regretted'—well, we are all deeply-regretted on our tombstones, aren't we? No—don't shake my hand off; if we are to be cousins by marriage, mayn't I even touch your sleeve?"
And at that identical moment, as they stood close together facing each other, Wallace with his hand on Laline's arm and both clearly agitated, the door opened quickly, and Lorin and his uncle came upon them.
CHAPTER XXV.