"Who? Melrose? Mother! Oh, I forgot—he's a sort of cousin, isn't he?"
"My second cousin."
"Worse luck! But that's nothing, unless one chooses it shall be. I believe, mother, you know a heap of things about Melrose you've never told me!"
Lady Tatham smiled faintly, but did not reply. Whereat Mrs. Penfold whose curiosity was insatiable, within lady-like bounds, tried to ask questions of her hostess. A wife? Surely there had been a wife?
"Certainly—twenty years ago. I saw her." The answer came readily.
"She ran away?"
"Not in the usual sense. There was no one, I understand, to run with. But she could not stand Threlfall—nor—I suppose—her husband. So one day—when he had gone to Italy, and she was left behind—she just—"
"'Elopes—down a ladder of ropes'" laughed Tatham; "and took the child?"
"Yes—and a bronze, worth a thousand pounds."
"Sensible woman! And where are they now?"