"Yes. I will come to the point, so as not to keep you in suspense. Although so long settled in Virginia, you are an Englishman?"
Plowden nodded, and Rutherford continued: "And although, before you married your present wife, always supposed to be a bachelor, in reality you left a wife in England."
"Merciful heavens!" exclaimed Plowden, half-falling against Rutherford in his surprise.
He was a physically weak old man. "It is all true. I can explain everything satisfactorily, however. But how came you to know all this?"
"I learned it from an elderly Englishwoman who came to my office yesterday. She called herself Maria Plowden—"
Plowden uttered a groan.
"I see you know the name."
"Yes," returned Plowden; "it is that of my first wife, who died in England shortly after I came to this country."
"Are you sure she died?"
"Bless my soul! of course I'm sure."