are
getting older every day, and I am the last of the three.'

'Yes,' said the lady frankly. 'And that is why I would not have you
hasten. Our marriage may seem so strange to everybody, after my unlucky
remark on that occasion we know so well, and which so many others know
likewise, thanks to talebearers.'

On this representation he conceded a little space, for the sake of her
good name. But the destined day of their marriage at last arrived, and
it was a gay time for the villagers and all concerned, and the bells in
the parish church rang from noon till night. Thus at last she was united
to the man who had loved her the most tenderly of them all, who but for
his reticence might perhaps have been the first to win her. Often did he
say to himself; 'How wondrous that her words should have been fulfilled!
Many a truth hath been spoken in jest, but never a more remarkable one!'
The noble lady herself preferred not to dwell on the coincidence, a
certain shyness, if not shame, crossing her fair face at any allusion
thereto.

But people will have their say, sensitive souls or none, and their
sayings on this third occasion took a singular shape. 'Surely,' they
whispered, 'there is something more than chance in this . . . The death
of the first was possibly natural; but what of the death of the second,
who ill-used her, and whom, loving the third so desperately, she must
have wished out of the way?'

Then they pieced together sundry trivial incidents of Sir John's illness,
and dwelt upon the indubitable truth that he had grown worse after her
lover's unexpected visit; till a very sinister theory was built up as to
the hand she may have had in Sir John's premature demise. But nothing of
this suspicion was said openly, for she was a lady of noble birth--nobler,
indeed, than either of her husbands--and what people suspected they
feared to express in formal accusation.

The mansion that she occupied had been left to her for so long a time as
she should choose to reside in it, and, having a regard for the spot, she
had coaxed Sir William to remain there. But in the end it was
unfortunate; for one day, when in the full tide of his happiness, he was
walking among the willows near the gardens, where he overheard a
conversation between some basket-makers who were cutting the osiers for
their use. In this fatal dialogue the suspicions of the neighbouring
townsfolk were revealed to him for the first time.

'A cupboard clos