"Well, he died a month or two ago--when she was away in the summer, you know. He had behaved awfully badly to her--deserted her soon after they were married. It was no fault of hers."
"It was certainly a fault of hers to receive another man's addresses while she was still a married woman," said the Professor severely.
"Oh, well, if you like to call it so; but I suppose I was as much in the wrong as she was. Anyhow, I was bound to her. I told her about--about Violet, you know, but she didn't seem to think that made much difference. So, you see, there was no getting out of it," concluded Bob simply.
"There is no getting out of it now," remarked the Professor, with a rueful face; "and I don't think you have improved matters by getting married in this hole-and-corner way. What was your object in doing that?"
"She thought it would be better," answered the young man indifferently; "and, as far as that goes, I agreed with her. It has saved us a good deal of bother with my people; besides which, I didn't care to let all the fellows in the regiment hear about it before I left."
The Professor groaned. He saw that the only course open to him, or to any of Bob's friends, was to make the best of a bad business; but for the moment he could think of nothing except what a very bad business it was, and after promising to keep the secret until it should be a secret no longer, he allowed the young man to depart without offering him a word of consolation. Why he should have felt moved, some hours later, to walk over to the lodgings which were still occupied by the bride, he would have been puzzled to explain. She could not undo what she had done, nor was there anything to be gained by upbraiding her. Perhaps it was rather a strong feeling of curiosity than anything else that led him to her door.
Having learnt that she was at home and alone, he followed the servant upstairs, and was presently in the shabby little drawing-room so well known to the officers of the 27th. Mrs. Harrington--to call her by the name which she had not yet formally resigned--rose from the chair in which she had been sitting by the fireside, and turned a curiously altered countenance towards her visitor. The Professor was at once struck by her extreme pallor, and by her air of weary despondency. To look at her, one would have thought that she had just sustained a crushing defeat, instead of having gained a victory.
"You have seen Bob!" she began.
"Ah!" sighed the Professor, speaking out his thoughts without ceremony, "I fear you have made a terrible mistake, both of you."
"Yes," she answered, and said no more, though he waited some time for her to explain herself.