"And done nothing, I expect?"
"I wrote to her father," was his reply. "I asked him in a straightforward, honourable manner to let me try and win her for my wife."
The woman's eyes shone bright with excitement. "And, and——?" she said.
"Here's his letter!" he replied. "I carry it around with me to tell myself what a fool I've been. You can read it if you like! You can see it's written in the third person, and evidently typed by his secretary. That of itself is an insult, when one bears in mind the kind of letter I wrote to him!"
The woman read it carefully, word by word. She could not help seeing the insult contained in every line, could not help realising that Judge Bolitho regarded Paul's request as an unpardonable piece of impertinence.
"Can't you be happy without her?" she asked at length.
"Never!" he replied. "Everything I may get in life could be but Dead Sea fruit now! Oh, mother, if only I had a name, if we could find out the truth!"
He was sorry he had spoken the moment the words passed his lips. He saw that her face became hard and set, that her eyes burnt with deadly anger. "Do you know that she is engaged to young Wilson?" she asked at length.
"What!"
"It's all over the town, Paul; there can be no doubt about it! It's in the newspaper."