"Yes; he and the servant next door subscribe to take it in; and Malcolm thought it might amuse me. It drove me out of the house and into the railway. If it had driven me out of mind, I shouldn't have been surprised."
"Gently, Herbert! Supposing the report had been true--?"
"After what you have told me, wh y should I suppose anything of the sort?"
"Don't be angry; and do pray remember that the Divorce allows you and Catherine to marry again, if you like."
Herbert became more unreasonable than ever. "If Catherine does think of marrying again," he said, "the man will have to reckon first with me. But that is not the point. You seem to have forgotten that the woman at Buck's Hotel is described as a Widow.
The bare doubt that my divorced wife might be the woman was bad enough--but what I wanted to find out was how she had passed off her false pretense on our child. _That_ was what maddened me! No more of it now. Have you seen Catherine lately?"
"Not lately."
"I suppose she is as handsome as ever. When will you ask her to let me see Kitty?"
"Leave that to me," was the one reply which Randal could venture to make at the moment.