"Charlotte had hoped to keep that disgrace from you."
"Ah!"
"She gave you another reason for breaking off her engagement?"
"Yes, a weak and futile one. She could not expect me to believe it. I did what she had but done before me. I went to Somerset House and saw that will which has been so greatly abused."
"She never knew that."
"Pardon me, she did."
"I fear I must be rude enough to contradict you. She said most distinctly that you were fully satisfied with the reasons she had given for breaking off the engagement, that perhaps you might never now learn what her father had done."
Hinton looked at his companion in some perplexity.
"But I wrote to her," he said. "I wrote a letter which, it seemed to me, any woman who had a spark even of kindness would have answered. In that letter, I told her that I held her to her promise; that I knew all; that even if she did not write to me I would call and try to see her. She never replied to my letter, and when, after waiting for twenty-four hours, I went to the house, she absolutely refused to see me."
"She never knew you called," answered Mrs. Home, "and she never got your letter."