“It is a little difficult,” said Letitia, “to know where to have you, when one moment you are ready to take on trust a mad-woman’s denial of a truth that is as well known as the Prince of Wales—and the next are shedding tears over the poor little boy.”
“I don’t see why one might not do both,” said John.
“No; consistency doesn’t matter much, does it? But putting sentiment aside, I should like to know what’s going to be done.”
“I haven’t heard much—how could I,” said John. “There’s no will but one made before the child was born—leaving the mother guardian—of course, if she’s mad, as you say, she can’t be that now, I suppose.”
“What does the doctor say?”
“The doctor says two or three things—as they all do—that she’s quite well, not mad at all, though of course it has a strange appearance that she should have forgotten her child, and would go against her in a court of law. But he thinks it is quite natural, by all kinds of reasons,” said John hurriedly, perceiving, as so few speakers are clever enough to do, that he no longer had the ear of his audience. He gave Letitia a look half affronted, half anxious, and then began to walk up and down the room, awaiting her reply.
“Five years old,” said Letitia, “a little puny thing with no stamina, and the mother out of the question, taking no interest——”
“Poor little thing,” said John.
“And after Mary—you are the guardian, I suppose.”
“Letitia!” he cried. There was something in the tone with which she had said these words—something indescribable, hideous, which horrified him. He turned upon her with staring eyes.