"Your wife's sister! You didna marry Chatterton's sweetheart?"
"No, sir—her elder sister."
"Oh, lord, if I had my fingers round the thrapple o' that leein' scoundrel on the tap of the coach! Gie me your hand, Captain Smith—it's all a mistake. I'll set it right in two minutes. Come with me to Chatterton's rooms—ye'll make him the happiest man in England. He's wud wi' love—mad with affection, as a body may say. He thought you had run off with his sweetheart, and it was only her sister!"
Captain Smith began to have some glimmerings of the real state of the case; and Mr Clam was on the point of going up to where they stood to make further enquiries for the improvement of his mind, when his travelling companion, again deeply veiled, laid her hand on his arm.
"Move not for your life!" she said.
"I'm not agoing to move, ma'am."
"Let them go," she continued; "we can get down by a side street. If they see me, I'm lost."
"Lost again! The mystery grows deeper and deeper."
"One of these is my husband."
Mr Clam drops her arm. "A married woman, and running after captains and colonels! Will you explain a little ma'am, for my head is so puzzled, that hang me if I know whether I stand on my head or my heels?"