"The Greenes of Green Park—the people in that pew near us in church, who used to be near us—the tall good-looking man with the glasses, and the pretty lady with the golden hair? Oh, I know! Tell me about them, Polly; how did they end?"
"Sir James Hannen," says Polly shortly; "that's how they ended. And nobody knew anything, even suspected anything, until the very last. They were the model couple of the whole country. Grandison Greene he used to be called, though his real name was Adolphus; but he was named Grandison, after a very courteous old swell in some book or other, on account of the fascinating elegance of his manners to the world at large and to his wife in particular. You never saw anything like their picturesque devotion to each other; they seemed to walk through matrimony in a sort of courtly minuet; and I've heard Lady Crawford tell auntie that it would just bring tears to your eyes to see that man shawl his wife in the cloak-room after a concert or dance. And this, my dear, went on for years and years, until one morning Mrs. Greene ran home to her mamma—she was a Miss Pakenham of Clare Abbey—and said she couldn't stand it any longer. And then it all came out in the Courts, for she refused to return to him, and he sued her publicly to make her do so, for a restitution of something or other—I forget the legal way of putting it. Any way, it came out that they simply loathed each other, and that Grandison had led the unfortunate woman the life of a fiend behind the scenes."
"Oh, Pauline, how truly thrilling!"
"It came out that, when he was wrapping her up so tenderly before every one, he used to pinch her poor arm until she was ready to scream with pain, but daren't; that he used to stealthily crunch her poor little foot when he was bending lovingly over her or bowing her out of the room; that he used to run pins into her flesh when he was adjusting a flower or knot of ribbons on her shoulder. You never heard such revelations. Aunt Jo hid all the papers at the time; but Bob and I found them, and read everything. He was a regular Bluebeard; and the very first evening I saw Armstrong offer his arm to Addie to bring her in to dinner, and the sort of shy shivery way she took it, made me think on the instant of Grandison Greene and his—"
"Polly, Polly," breaks in Lottie excitedly, "do you think Mr. Armstrong and Addie have come to that? Do you think he runs pins into her, pinches her when we're not looking? Oh"—after a pause, with a burst of relief—"I don't believe it! Because, if he did, she'd pinch him back; I know she would. She is not like Mrs. Greene; she has a spirit of her own, has Addie. She'd pinch him back just as hard, and then we should find out."
"Lottie, don't argue like a fool! I never said Armstrong ill-used her actively, never said he was a born brute like Adolphus Greene, though he is not the style of a man I should care to call husband. I give him his due, and honestly believe he would not touch a hair of her head unkindly, no matter what provocation he got. No; what I mean is that they have simply found out that they are utterly unsuited to each other—had a bit of difference, perhaps. I dare say he taxed her with marrying him for his money, and she answered back something of the kind; and the upshot was, they determined to hide their discovery from every one, even from us, which was a vain and foolish resolve so far as I am concerned."
"I should like to know, I should like to find out," murmurs Lottie fervently. "I'll watch them closely, I'll ask Addie questions when she's off her guard, I'll—"
"Lottie," cries Pauline sharply, facing her sister, "if you attempt to do anything of that kind, if you ever by word, look, or act, betray what I have so foolishly confided to you, you will rue the day to the end of your life! Do you hear me? You don't know what mischief you'll do. You are an unfortunate child at the best of times, Lottie; you seldom come into a room without making some one uncomfortable with your luckless remarks and questions."
"I don't mean to make them uncomfortable," she answers tearfully.
"I don't say you do; but the effect is the same. And, in this case, if you thrust yourself into the fray, you will simply ruin us all."