“That proves nothing,” resumed my aunt, when I had shown her my Prayer-book, and we had discussed that matter; “she may very well have relented, at the last moment, and written that to you.” “Then would she have taken all our money? Was that the way to cure my jealousy, and bring me back to her in penitence? She had a right to the money, because you put it into her own hand. But I am astonished at her taking it.” Miss Parslow was even more astonished, when I told her that part of the tale, which I had begged Uncle Corny not to do. It grieved me that she should ever hear of it; but she certainly had the right to know. “Perhaps you told her in so many words that you meant it entirely for herself,” I suggested, hoping that it might be so; for, little as I cared for that trumpery loss, I was cut to the quick that my wife should have inflicted it; “Kitty must have believed it her own, or she never would have touched it.” “I said nothing of the kind,” my aunt replied indignantly; “I gave it to her, but I meant it for you—that is to say conjointly. Her taking it was robbery, and nothing else.” I laughed a little at these words, which I had heard from other quarters. That my Kitty should be called a robber, seemed a little too absurd. But I could not be angry in the teeth of facts, at any rate with the donor. “I’ll tell you what it is,” she said, even as I had been told before; “either your wife is as deep a little hypocrite as ever lived, which I cannot believe, for I should never trust any one again if I did; or else she ran away from you in a moment of insanity. My poor boy, I am so sorry for you. I cannot bear to ask you, but have you ever noticed any tendency that way—anything even odd, or absent, or inconsequential in her manner? The professor is a very queer man, I have heard. All great men of science are—well, to say the least eccentric.” “Captain Fairthorn is perfectly sound and clear-headed, though not a good man of business. And his daughter is as rational as I am—much more so, if I am to endure much more of this. She is quick, and bright-witted, and full of common sense; except that, like her father, she is a little too confiding. I never saw a token of even the slightest absence of mind about her. Her only insanity was that she loved me a great deal better than she loved herself. I believe she would have laid down her life with pleasure—” “Don’t talk about it, my dear Kit. I think you have borne things wonderfully well, now that I know all you have told me. And you must not break down now, my dear. All will come right in the end, be sure, although we are in thick darkness now. In spite of all difficulties, I still hold to my idea of jealousy. However, we won’t talk of that any more. You know that I called upon Miss Coldpepper, the last time I was at Sunbury?” “Yes. But I never heard what she said. I cannot see how she could help us at all.”