"I have not as yet, but hope to do soon. We were all together in the same house in North Wales." "Ah! at Craigaderyn Court?" "Yes; Sir Madoc Lloyd's. Do you know Sir Madoc?" "I have not that pleasure." "Who, then, that you are acquainted with knows him?" "My husband." "Your husband!" said I, glancing at the plain hoop on the delicate little hand, which she was now gloving nervously. "He was there with you; must have been conversing with you often. I saw you all at church together one Sunday afternoon, and frequently on the terraces and on the lawn; while!"--she covered her face with her hands--"while I loitered and lurked like an outcast!" "Your husband, madam?" I queried again. "Mr. Hawkesby Guilfoyle." Whew! Here was a discovery: it quite took my breath away, and I looked with deeper interest on the sweet and pale and patient little face. I now remembered the letter I had picked up and returned to him; his confusion about it, and the horse he alleged to have lost by at a race that had not come off; his irritation, the postal marks, and the name of _Georgette_. After such a termination to his visit to Craigaderyn, I could fancy that his situation as a guest or visitor at Walcot Park, even after he found the ladies there were ignorant of the nature of Sir Madoc's curt note to him, must be far from enviable, for such as he must live in hourly dread of insult, slight, or exposure; but how was I now situated with regard to her I loved? Deemed, perhaps, guilty in her eyes, and without a crime; and if aware of the situation, the malevolent Guilfoyle would be sure to avail himself of it to the fullest extent. "Lady Estelle is very lovely, as I could see," said my companion. "Very; but you saw her--when?" "In Craigaderyn church, most fully and favourably." And now I recalled the pale-faced little woman in black, who had been pointed out to me by Winifred Lloyd, and who had been found in a swoon among the gravestones by old Farmer Rhuddlan. In all this there was some mystery, which I felt curious enough to probe, as Guilfoyle had never by word or hint at any time given those among whom he moved reason to believe he was aught else than a bachelor, and a very eligible one, too; for if my once rival, as I believed him to be, was not a creditable, he was certainly a plausible, one; and here lay with me the means of an _exposé_ beyond even that which had taken place at Craigaderyn Court. "You are his wife, madam, and yet--does he, for purposes of his own, disavow you?" said I, after a pause, not knowing very well how to put my leading question. "It is so, sir--for infamous purposes of his own." "But you have him in your power; you have all the air of a lady of birth and education--why not come forward and assert your position?"