“Some transient boarder must have left it, I think. It had been laying around on the parlor table several days when she picked it up.”
He went over the paper carefully—the deaths, the marriages—but he saw nothing about any one by the name of Wilcox. There was a society column, and he went over that, too, although he did not expect to find anything relating to her, for she had been very careful to impress upon his mind, with a sort of proud humility, that she belonged to the humble walks of life.
“Ah!” he exclaimed suddenly.
“You’ve found it?” exclaimed Mrs. Scruggs.
“Oh, no, nothing relating to her,” he answered quickly.
The paragraph that had surprised him was this:
Norman Wylde has returned from his long sojourn abroad, and his much-talked-of marriage to the beautiful Miss Ives will take place very soon.
Major Falconer knew both parties very well, but he had never spoken of them to Pansy. He forgot both almost immediately in his anxiety over the sick girl.
“Mrs. Scruggs, I wonder if I might see her? I am a very old friend,” he said.
“She is sitting up a little while to-day. I know she would be glad to see you,” was the answer, and she immediately conducted him to Pansy’s room.