"Be seated, pray, or will you enter the house?"
"Thank you, sir; my name is Cluett, sir, and I am an old friend of your wife, and have called to see her, being in the neighbourhood."
"Indeed, sir; I am really glad to meet you, Mr. Cluett, so be seated, pray, for it is pleasanter here than indoors."
Schuyler Cluett sat down. But he hardly knew what to say.
It seemed evident, from the colonel's manner, he thought, that his wife had kept her secret, for he did not appear to be known.
"I hope Mrs. Ivey is well, sir?" he volunteered.
"Well, sir, as to that I cannot just say, as she is not at home; but I hope so."
"Indeed! she is absent then?"
"Yes, sir, she has gone far away, she and her children, and, as you are an old friend of hers, I do not mind telling you that it is on account of a grand scamp whom she once married."
"No!"