ay
speak of Krant again, since, so far as she is concerned, there is no
need for her to keep the fact of her first marriage secret.'

'Except that she may not wish to recall unhappy days,' put in the
bishop, softly. 'Indeed, I wonder that Amy could bring herself to speak
of Krant to her son and mine.'

'Women, my friend, do and say things at which they wonder themselves,'
said the misogynist, cynically; 'probably Mrs Pendle acted on the
impulse of the moment and regretted it immediately the words were out of
her mouth. Still, she may describe Krant again when she comes back, and
her listener may be as clever as Gabriel was in putting two and two
together, and connecting your wife's first husband with Krant. Should
such a thing occur--and it might occur--your secret would become the
common property of this scandalmongering place, and your last condition
would be worse than your first. Also,' continued Graham, with the air of
a person clinching an argument, 'if you and Mrs Pendle are to part, my
poor friend, she must be told the reason for such separation.'

'Part!' echoed the bishop, indignantly. 'My dear Amy and I shall never
part, doctor. I wonder that you can suggest such a thing. Now that Krant
is dead beyond all doubt, I shall marry his widow at once.'

'Quite so, and quite right,' assented Graham, emphatically; 'but in that
case, as you can see for yourself, you must tell her that the first
marriage is null and void, so as to account for the necessity of the
second ceremony.' The doctor paused and reflected. 'Old scatterbrain
that I am,' said he, with a shrug, 'I quite forgot that way out of the
difficulty. A second marriage! Of course! and there is your riddle
solved.'

'No doubt, so far as Amy and I are concerned,' said Pendle, gloomily,
'but so late a ceremony will not make my children legitimate. In
England, marriage is not a retrospective act.'

'They manage these things better in France,' opined Graham, in the
manner of Sterne; 'there a man can legitimise his children born out of
wedlock if he so chooses. There was a talk of modifying the English Act
in the same way; but, of course, the very nice people with nasty ideas
shrieked out in their usual pig-headed style about legalised immorality.
However,' pursued the doctor, in a more cheerful tone, 'I do not see
that you need worry yourself on that point, bishop. You can depend upon
Gabriel and me holding our tongues; you need not tell Lucy or George,
and