"I have nothing worth speaking of to tell," he answers, slightly. "It is only that never having had a wife myself, I have taken an outsider's view; I have taken it for granted that when two people marry each other they make a clean breast of their past history--make a mutual confession of their former--" He pauses, as if in search of a word. "But supposing," cry I, eagerly, "that they have nothing to tell, nothing to confess--" He shrugs his shoulders. "That is so likely, is it not?" "Likely or not," cry I, excitedly, "it was true in _my_ case. If you had put me on the rack, I could have confessed nothing!" "I do not see the analogy," he answers, coldly; "_you_ are--what did you tell me? nineteen?--It is to be supposed"--(with a rather unlovely smile)--"that your history is yet to come; and he is--_forty-seven_! We shall be late for church!"--with a glance at Algy's and Barbara's quickly diminishing figures. "I do not care whether we are late or not!" cry I, vehemently, and stamping on the daisy-heads as I speak. "I will not _stir_ until you tell me." "There is really no need for such excitement!" returns he with a cold smile; "since you will have it, it is only that rumor--and you know what a liar _rumor_ is--says that once, some years ago, they were engaged to marry each other." "And why did not they?" speaking with breathless panting, and forgetting my stout asseveration that the whole tale is a lie. "Because--mind, I _vouch_ for nothing, I am only quoting rumor again--because--she threw him over." "_Threw him over!_" with an accent of most unfeigned astonishment. "You are surprised!" he says, quickly, and with what sounds to me like a slightly annoyed inflection of voice; "it _does_ seem incredible, does not it? But at that time, you see, he had not all the desirables--not quite the pull over other men that he has now; his brother was not dead or likely to die, and he was only General Tempest, with nothing much besides his pay." "_Threw--him--over!_" repeat I, slowly, as if unable yet to grasp the sense of the phrase. "We shall _certainly_ be late; the last bell is beginning," says Frank, impatiently. I move slowly on. We have reached the turnstile that gives issue from the park to the road. The smart farmers' wives, the rosy farmers' daughters, are pacing along through the powdery dust toward the church-gate. "Is she a _widow_?" ask I, in a low voice. He laughs sarcastically. "A widow indeed, and desolate, eh? No! I believe she has a husband somewhere about, but she keeps him well out of sight--away in the colonies. He is there now, I fancy." "And why is not she with him?" cry I, indignantly; but the moment that the words are out of my mouth, I hang my head. Might not _she_ ask the same question with regard to _me_? "She did not like the _sea_, perhaps," answers Frank, demurely. CHAPTER XXIV. A day--two days pass.