"He was called away almost ere the marriage was finished," she answered distressfully. "There was news brought of his father's illness, and he rode off. Yet was he to meet me this night at Guildford."
For a moment I was silent, for there leaped into my mind a notion of what that rogue, Sir Gilbert Avory, was about, and then—for the creature drew me compassionately, and she was but a chick for all her steady face,—
"By Heaven," says I, "but this is to go beyond me. I spoil no proper sport, not I; and you and your husband sup together to-night, I promise you, so shall ye."
She looked at me somewhat startled, but with a glow of colour on her face.
"I knew you were true, I knew you were true," said she, repeating it, and seizing of my hand.
"Oh, faugh," says I, "I am well enough," for it irked me to think for what I had taken her all along.
"Will you tell me," she asked in a hesitating voice, "who was it that put you to this?"
"You are welcome to that," I returned bluntly. "'Twas Sir Gilbert Avory himself."
She sighed. "So I had guessed," she said. "He has persecuted me a full year, and no doubt 'twas he that drew off my husband."