“Yes, I have seen her; no often, but more than once. If that is all, I can tell you what like she was, and all I ken about her; or, if not all---- She was ill in health and troubled in spirit, poor thing, when I saw her. I cannot think she was ever either strong or gay.” “Was that after her--children were born?” asked Arthur, eagerly. “It was before she had any bairn. It was thought she never would have one, and her husband was sore disturbed. But, ye see, the doctors turned out fools, as they do so often,” Mrs. Murray added hastily, turning and fixing her eyes upon him. She made a pause between the two sentences, and changed her tone completely. The first was mere reminiscence, the other had a certain defiance in it; and Arthur felt there was some meaning, though one he could not read, in the suddenly watchful expression of her eyes. “Yes,” he said, thoughtfully, “so it appears.” And as he spoke the watchfulness went off Mrs. Murray’s face, and she evidently (though why he could not think) calmed herself down. “So it appears,” he repeated vaguely. “She was some time married, then, I suppose, before my cousin Edgar was born?” “I have heard say five years,” said the old woman, once more rousing up, with a watchful light in each steady eye. “Ah, then, that’s impossible,” he said to himself. An idea had been growing in Arthur’s mind that the Squire’s wife might have been a widow with an infant child--an explanation which would make everything clear, yet save her from the imputation of a capital crime in respect to her husband. That was impossible. He mused on it for a minute or two, and then he resumed his questions. “Who was Mrs. Arden? I am anxious to know,” he said, and then corrected himself, for his tone had been peremptory. “I am thinking of the family history,” he added. “She was a stranger, and we don’t know even where she belongs to. That will explain my curiosity to you. I am anxious to know.”