“She set her cap at me once, when she fancied, and I believed, I was coming into a small fortune from my father’s sister. But my father’s sister took a dislike to me and when she died the money went to some missionary society. Directly the girl heard that, she found she no longer cared for me and turned her attention to Johnson, with whom I was living at the time, and who was already head over ears in love with her.”
“That was out East, I suppose?”
“Yes, in Hong Kong, which we have been talking about so much to-night. I don’t think Johnson will ever marry.”
“Don’t you? I do. In fact I am prepared to wager he will be married within the year.”
Llanvar looked at him in astonishment.
“You don’t mean that!” he exclaimed. “Why, who is the lady?”
Then it was that Hopford proceeded to tell him about the pretty widow, as he called her, Cora Hartsilver, and what he had noticed while in Jersey. And they were both in Jersey still, he said, and, in his opinion, likely to remain there some time.
“In fact, it would not surprise me at all,” he ended, “if Johnson and Mrs. Hartsilver were to become engaged before returning to England. Johnson has not even hinted to me that the widow attracts him, but I have noticed his expression when he speaks of her, and, more than that, I have noticed the way she looks at him when they are together.”