“It is very antiquated and out of date, but I don’t know that it need be called dishonourable; and he has a high idea of his authority; but to make a false representation of another man----” “Aubrey, these distinctions are too fine for me. There is only one thing that I can do. I will now go and interview Colonel Kingsward. If he knows of anything new, he will soon reveal it to me. If he goes only over the old ground, then we may be sure that your _fiancée_ has been told something in her own ear--something apart from her father--which she has betrayed to no one. Unless, perhaps, it was got from the mother----” “Not a word about the mother. She is dead, and she is sacred; and besides she was the last, the very last----” “You have yourself said she was very weak, Aubrey.” “Weak so far as resisting her husband was concerned, but incapable of an unkind word; incapable of any treachery or falsehood; a creature, both in body and soul, whom you could almost see through.” Mrs. Leigh shook her head a little. “I know those transparent people,” she said. “They are not always so---- But never mind; I am going to interview Colonel Kingsward now.” Colonel Kingsward was very courteous to his visitor. He received her visit of sympathy with polite gratitude, accepting her excuse that so nearly connected as the families had been about to be, she could not be in town without coming to express her great regret and feeling for his family left motherless. Colonel Kingsward was very _digne_. He had the fullest sense of what was expected in his position, and he did not allow any other feeling to come in the way of that. He thanked Mrs. Leigh for her sympathy, and exaggerated his sense of her goodness in coming to express it. It was more, much more, than he had any right to expect. If there was any alleviation to his grief it was in the sense of the great kindness of friends--“and even of strangers,” he said, with a grave bow, which seemed to throw Mrs. Leigh indefinitely back into the regions of the unknown. This put her on her mettle at once. “I do not feel like a stranger,” she said. “I have heard so much of your family--every member of it--through my son, Aubrey. I regret greatly that the connection which seemed to be so suitable should hang at all in doubt----” “It does not hang in doubt,” said Colonel Kingsward, “I am sorry if you have got that impression. It is quite broken off--once for all.” “That is a hard thing to say to Aubrey Leigh’s mother,” she said; “such a stigma should not be put upon a young man lightly.” “I am sorry to discuss such matters with a lady. But I don’t know what you call lightly, Mrs. Leigh. I do not believe for a moment that you would give a daughter of your own--I do not know whether you have daughters of your own----” “Two--happily married, thank heaven, and off my hands.”