“What the duse do you mean? Didn’t Violet love Mr. Castello?”
“Oh, sir, you know she didn’t. She told me every day how much she hated him, and how she adored Cecil Grant.”
Mrs. Shirley had gone too far to retreat now, although her teeth were chattering with terror of his anger. But her whole sympathies were with Violet, and she could not keep back the words.
Judge Camden’s eyes snapped viciously, and he cried:
“If she didn’t love Mr. Castello, why did she marry him, eh?”
“That’s what is troubling me,” returned Mrs. Shirley, frankly. “I know she hated him; and when Amber told me she had run off to marry him, it gave me a dreadful turn, for I thought what if he stole her off against her will?”
“Tut, tut, tut! what a silly old woman! Violet married him for spite, if you must know the truth! It was Grant she was going to elope with, but he failed to meet her at the church, and Castello followed her there and pleaded his cause so well that she forsook her laggard lover and married him instead. That is the story, as Amber told it, and I think myself that Violet did a wise thing in giving young Grant the slip; although I ought to cane him for not keeping his appointment with my granddaughter.”
Mrs. Shirley was dazed at this plausible explanation, but, true to her colors, she cried, sadly:
“Oh, I am very, very sure that something dreadful must have happened to keep Cecil away, for he is a very noble young man, and——” she was going on tremulously, but he interrupted, with a frowning brow:
“That will do, madame; no more praises of that young scamp, if you please! I knew,” sarcastically, “that the young ladies of my family were both in love with the beggar; but an old woman like you ought to be thinking of something else besides a handsome young man!”