“You call yourself Mrs. Mapping.”
“I am Mrs. Mapping.”
The stranger shook her head. “We cannot converse here,” she said. “Allow me to go up to your room”—pointing to it. “I know you lodge there.”
“But what is it that you want with me?” objected Dolly, who did not like all this.
“You think yourself the wife of Alick Mapping. You think you were married to him.”
Dolly wondered whether the speaker had escaped from that neighbouring stronghold, Bedlam. “I don’t know what it is you wish to insinuate,” she said. “I was married to Mr. Mapping at St. Martin’s Church in Worcester, more than eighteen months ago.”
“Ay! But I, his wife, was married to him in London seven years ago. Yours was no marriage; he deceived you.”
Dolly’s face was turning all manner of colours. She felt frightened almost to death.
“Take me to your room and I will tell you all that you need to know. Do not fear I shall reproach you; I am only sorry for you; it has been no fault of yours. He is a finished deceiver, as I have learnt to my cost.”
Dolly led the way. Seated together, face to face, her eyes strained on the stranger’s, she listened to the woeful tale, which was gently told. That it was true she could not doubt. Alick Mapping had married her at St. Martin’s Church in Worcester, but he had married this young woman some years before it.