"Pshaw! are you not my cousin and my medical adviser? Don't be absurd, Guy. Mr. Walraven troubles himself very little about me, one way or other. I might hold a levee of my gentlemen friends here, week in and week out, for all he would know or care."
"Ah! post-nuptial bliss. I thought marriage, in his case, would be a safe antidote for love. All right, Blanche. Push ahead. What's your business? Time is precious this morning. Hosts of patients on hand, and an interesting case of leprosy up at Bellevue."
"I don't want to know your medical horrors," said Mrs. Walraven, with a shudder of disgust; "and I think you will throw over your patients when you hear the subject I want to talk about. That subject is—Mollie Dane!"
"Mollie!" The doctor was absorbed and vividly interested all at once. "What of Mollie Dane?"
"This," lowering her voice: "I have found out the grand secret. I know where that mysterious fortnight was spent."
"Blanche!" He leaned forward, almost breathless. "Have you? Where?"
"You'd never guess. It sounds too romantic—too incredible—for belief. Even the hackneyed truism, 'Truth is stranger than fiction,' will hardly suffice to conquer one's astonishment—yet true it is. Do you recollect the Reverend Mr. Rashleigh's story at the dinner-party, the other day—that incredible tale of his abduction and the mysterious marriage of the two masks?"
"I recollect—yes."
"He spoke of the bride, you remember—described her as small and slender, with a profusion of fair, curling hair."
"Yes—yes—yes!"