"Is Neal your uncle, Mrs. Wentworth?"
"I call him so sometimes, sir, when I want to be pleasant with him, but in point of fact he is no real relation. My step-mother is his sister; and that makes him a sort of uncle-in-law."
"And you have not--excuse my pressing the question, Mrs. Wentworth, but I have a reason for it--given Neal reason to suppose that you were ever married to any one except Sergeant-Major Wentworth?" resumed Captain Davenal.
"Never in my life, sir," she replied, and her accent of truth was unmistakable. "Say to Neal that I was married to anybody else! What for? It would be childish to say it; he knows quite well that I was married to Serjeant Wentworth. He was not serjeant-major then."
The falsehood then had been Neal's! Captain Davenal glanced at Sara. But the sergeant's wife spoke again.
"Could you interest yourself for me with Wentworth, sir?"
"Ah, I don't know. It is a ticklish thing, you see, to interfere between man and wife," added the captain, a jesting smile upon his lips. "What is your grievance against Wentworth?"
Mrs. Wentworth entered on her grievances; a whole catalogue. She required that her husband should send for her to be with him in India, or else that he should make her a better allowance, so that she could live "as a lady." She knew he got plenty of prize-money she said, for she had been told so; and she finished up with stating that she had been to the War Office, and to half-a-dozen other offices to complain of him, and could get no redress.
"Well," said Captain Davenal, "I'll tell you what I'll do: will write to your husband--a man for whom I have great respect,--and inquire his version of the quarrel between you. We should always hear both sides of a question, you know, Mrs. Wentworth. When I get his answer, you shall hear from me. To be candid with you, I must say that I don't think Wentworth is one to allow of much interference. He has good judgment, and he likes to exercise it. But I will write to him."
"And you'll promise to see me again, sir, in spite of Neal? What his objection was, I don't know, but he did all he could to prevent my seeing you."