At last Harry, looking out of the window as he leaned back in his chair, said, in a careless sort of way, but in a low tone—

“Did you ever tell Alice anything about it before you came here?”

“Alice?” said Charles, wincing and looking very pale. “Well, you know, why should I?”

“You know best of course, but I thought you might, maybe,” answered Harry, stretching himself with an imperfect yawn.

“No,” said Charles, looking down with a flush.

“She never heard anything about it at any time, then?—and mind, my dear fellow, I’m only asking. You know much better than me what’s best to be done; but the old brute will give you trouble, I’m afeard. She’ll be writing letters, and maybe printing things; but you don’t take in the papers here, so it won’t come so much by surprise like.”

“Alice knows nothing of it. She never heard of her,” said Charles.

“I wish she may have heard as little of Alice,” said Harry.

“Why, you don’t mean to say”—began Charles, and stopped.

“I think the woman has got some sort of a maggot in her head. I think she has, more than common, and you’ll find I’m right.”

Charles got up and stood at the window for a little.

“I can’t guess what you mean, Harry. I don’t know what you think. Do tell me, if you have any clear idea, what is she thinking of?”

“I don’t know what to think, and upon my soul that one’s so deep,” said Harry. “But I’d bet something she’s heard more than we’d just like about this, and if so, there’ll be wigs on the green.”

“There has been nothing—I mean no letter; I have not heard from her for months—not since you saw her before. I think if there had been anything unusual in her mind she would have written. Don’t you? I dare say what you saw was only one of those ungoverned outbreaks of temper that mean nothing.”

“I hope so,” said Harry.

“I blame myself, I’m no villain, I didn’t mean badly, but I’m a cursed fool. It’s all quite straight though, and it doesn’t matter a farthing what she does—not a farthing,” broke out Charles Fairfield. “But I would not have poor little Alice frightened and made miserable, and what had I best do, and where do you think we had best go?” He lowered his voice, and glanced toward the door as he said this, suddenly remembering that Alice might come in the midst of their consultation.

“Go? For the present arn’t you well enough where you are? Wait a bit anyhow. But I wonder you didn’t tell Alice; she ought to ’a known something about it—oughtn’t she, before you married her, or whatever you call it.”

“Before I married her? of course,” said Charles sternly; “married her!—you don’t mean, I fancy, to question my marriage?”

Charles was looking at him with a very grim steady gaze.

“Why, what the devil should I know, or care about lawyer’s nonsense and pleadings, my dear fellow; I never could make head or tail of them, only as we are talking here so confidential, you and me, whatever came uppermost—I forget what—I just rapped out—has that Hoxton lady any family?”

“Don’t you know she has not?” replied Charles.

“I know it now, but she might have a sieve full for anything I knew,” answered Harry.

“I think, Harry, if you really thought she and I were married, that was too important a question for you, wasn’t it, to be forgotten so easily?” said Charles.

“Important, how so?” asked Harry.

“How so, my dear Harry? Why, you can’t be serious—you haven’t forgot that the succession to Wyvern depends on it,” exclaimed Charles Fairfield.

“Bah! Wyvern, indeed! why, man, the thought never came near me—me Wyvern! Sich pure rot! We Fairfields lives good long lives mostly, and marries late sometimes; there’s forty good years before ye. Gad, Charlie, you must think o’ summat more likely if you want folk to believe ye. Ye’ll not hang me on that count, no, no.”

And he laughed.

“Well, I think so; I’m glad of it, for you know I wrote to tell you about what is, I hope, likely to be, it has made poor little Alice so happy, and if there should come an heir, you know he’d be another squire of Wyvern in a long line of Fairfields, and it wouldn’t do, Harry, to have a doubt thrown on him, and I’m glad to hear you say the pretence of that damned woman’s marriage is a lie.”

“Well, you know best,” said Harry. “I’m very sorry for Alice, poor little thing, if there’s ever any trouble at all about it.”

And he looked through the windows along the tops of the tufted trees that caught the sunlight softly, with his last expression of condolence.

“You have said more than once, I don’t say today, that you were sure—that you knew as well as I did there was nothing in that woman’s story.”

“Isn’t that some one coming?” said Harry, turning his head toward the door.

“No, no one,” said Charles after a moment’s silence. “But you did say so, Harry—you know you did.”

“Well, if I did I did, that’s all, but I don’t remember,” said Harry, “and I’m sure you make a mistake.”

“A mistake—what do you mean?” asked Charles.

“I mean marriage or no marriage, I never meant to say as you suppose—I know nothing about it, whatever I may think,” said Harry, sturdily.

“You know everything that I know, I’ve told you everything,” answered Charles Fairfield,

“And what o’ that? How can you or me tell whether it makes a marriage or not, and I won’t be quoted by you or anyone else, as having made such a mouth of myself as to lay down the law in a case that might puzzle a judge,” said Harry, darkening.

“You believe the facts I’ve told you, I fancy,” said Charles sternly.

“You meant truth, I’m sure o’ that, and beyond that I believe nothing but what I have said myself, and more I won’t say for the king,” said Harry”, putting his hands in his pockets, and looking sulkily at Charles, with his mouth a little open.

Charles look............