“Is she often here?” I asked at last, when I found voice again. I was so upset by this statement, that with difficulty I remained calm.
“Oh yes, very often; especially now that Mr Cyril is at the barracks. They ride out together every morning, and are very often about in the town in the afternoon. You’ll no doubt see them.”
“Ah,” I said, with the object of misleading my garrulous informant, “it can’t be the lady I mean, as her name is not Beryl.”
“The description is very much like her,” he observed, knocking the ash from his cigar.
“Is there any talk of young Chetwode marrying?” I inquired.
“Well, yes, there are rumours of course,” he answered. “Some say that the Colonel is against it, while others say that Mrs Chetwode is jealous of her stepson, so one doesn’t know exactly what to believe.”
“I suppose you hear a lot of gossip about them, eh?”
“Oh, a lot. Much, too, that ain’t true,” he laughed. “Why, somebody said once that Miss Beryl was the daughter of an officer who got sent to penal servitude.”
“Who said that?” I said, at once pricking up my ears. Was it not Major Tattersett who had accompanied her to the registry at Doctors’ Commons, and who had given me that cigarette?
“Oh, it was a story that got about.”