‘I had a letter this morning from Kitty,’ she said carelessly, to change the subject.
‘Kitty who?’
‘Kitty Montmorency. She says old Ombermere is very ill, and thinks he’s breaking up. By the way, that reminds me—Kitty’s first husband was a man named Bradley, who was to have entered the Church. I suppose it can’t be the same.’
She spoke with little thought of the consequences, and was not prepared for the change which suddenly came over her companion.
‘Her husband, did you say?’ he exclaimed, gripping her arm. ‘Were they married?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And the man was named Bradley—Ambrose Bradley?’
‘I’m not quite sure about the Christian name.’
‘How long was this ago?’
‘Oh, a long time—ten years,’ she replied; then with a sudden remembrance of her own claims to juvenility, which she had forgotten for a moment, she added, ‘when I was quite a child.’