"I do not care whether we are late or not!" cry I, vehemently, and stamping on the daisy-heads as I speak. "I will not stir until you tell me."
"There is really no need for such excitement!" returns he with a cold smile; "since you will have it, it is only that rumor—and you know what a liar rumor is—says that once, some years ago, they were engaged to marry each other."
"And why did not they?" speaking with breathless panting, and forgetting my stout asseveration that the whole tale is a lie.
"Because—mind, I vouch for nothing, I am only quoting rumor again—because—she threw him over."
"Threw him over!" with an accent of most unfeigned astonishment.
"You are surprised!" he says, quickly, and with what sounds to me like a slightly annoyed inflection of voice; "it does seem incredible, does not it? But at that time, you see, he had not all the desirables—not quite the pull over other men that he has now; his brother was not dead or likely to die, and he was only General Tempest, with nothing much besides his pay."
"Threw—him—over!" repeat I, slowly, as if unable yet to grasp the sense of the phrase.
"We shall certainly be late; the last bell is beginning," says Frank, impatiently.
I move slowly on. We have reached the turnstile that gives issue from the park to the road. The smart farmers' wives, the rosy farmers' daughters, are pacing along through the powdery dust toward the church-gate.
"Is she a widow?" ask I, in a low voice.