“Nobody but the old lady can tell me what I want to know,” I answered. “Your discovery (as you call it) may be enough for _you_; it is not enough for _me_. How do we know that Mrs. Macallan may not have been twice married? and that her first husband’s name may not have been Woodville?” The landlady’s astonishment subsided in its turn, and the landlady’s curiosity succeeded as the ruling influence of the moment. Substantially, as I have already said of her, she was a good-natured woman. Her fits of temper (as is usual with good-natured people) were of the hot and the short-lived sort, easily roused and easily appeased. “I never thought of that,” she said. “Look here! if I give you the address, will you promise to tell me all about it when you come back?” I gave the required promise, and received the address in return. “No malice,” said the landlady, suddenly resuming all her old familiarity with me. “No malice,” I answered, with all possible cordiality on my side. In ten minutes more I was at my mother-in-law’s lodgings. CHAPTER VI. MY OWN DISCOVERY. FORTUNATELY for me, the landlord did not open the door when I rang. A stupid maid-of-all-work, who never thought of asking me for my name, let me in. Mrs. Macallan was at home, and had no visitors with her. Giving me this information, the maid led the way upstairs, and showed me into the drawing-room without a word of announcement. My mother-in-law was sitting alone, near a work-table, knitting. The moment I appeared in the doorway she laid aside her work, and, rising, signed to me with a commanding gesture of her hand to let her speak first. “I know what you have come here for,” she said. “You have come here to ask questions. Spare yourself, and spare me. I warn you beforehand that I will not answer any questions relating to my son.” It was firmly, but not harshly said. I spoke firmly in my turn. “I have not come here, madam, to ask questions about your son,” I answered. “I have come, if you will excuse me, to ask you a question about yourself.” She started, and looked at me keenly over her spectacles. I had evidently taken her by surprise. “What is the question?” she inquired. “I now know for the first time, madam, that your name is Macallan,” I said. “Your son has married me under the name of Woodville. The only honorable explanation of this circumstance, so far as I know, is that my husband is your son by a first marriage. The happiness of my life is at stake. Will you kindly consider my position? Will you let me ask you if you have been twice married, and if the name of your first husband was Woodville?” She considered a little before she replied. “The question is a perfectly natural one in your position,” she said. “But I think I had better not answer it.” “May I as k why?”