Burgo's Romance

by T. W. Speight

"They had been married in Italy a few weeks before and were on their way home, doing the thing by easy stages. Of course you are aware that the bride is at the very least thirty years younger than the bridegroom?"

"I believe I have been told something of the sort," answered Burgo. Although, in point of fact, he had been told nothing of the kind.

"A famous catch for her, I should imagine, considering--hem!--her antecedents," remarked the Captain with an expressive shrug.

For the moment Burgo felt a strong desire to fling his companion out of the window, but he reflected in time that, were he to do so, he might perhaps remain for ever in ignorance of the antecedents to which Cusden had alluded, and he had his reasons for not wanting to do that. So he merely lighted another cigarette, and said in his drawling way: "She had antecedents, then?"

"No woman of thirty is without 'em, particularly when she comes to marry her third husband."

"I should not wonder if you are right there," was all Burgo condescended to remark in reply to this somewhat startling piece of intelligence.

"Her first husband is said to have been an Italian who held some sort of Government post," resumed Cusden. "Entre nous, I believe she herself is half an Italian. He left her with one boy, who is said to be now at school somewhere in Switzerland. Her second husband, Colonel Innes, was an old East Indian without any liver to speak of. He is said to have died under somewhat mysterious circumstances at the end of a couple of years, and there were some queer rumours afloat at the time, but I suppose they came to nothing. By all accounts that second marriage must have proved a rank failure as far as she was concerned, seeing that the Colonel lost nearly all he was worth by a bank smash within a year of their becoming man and wife."

"You seem to have picked up a lot about her in the course of your travels," remarked Burgo.

"People will talk, you know, dear boy, and one can't help hearing what is said in society. However, you'll probably have the pleasure of making Lady Clinton's acquaintance before long. Ta-ta for the present."

There was cold comfort for Burgo in what Cusden had just told him. "I hope to heaven the dear old boy has not fallen into the hands of some scheming adventuress," he muttered.