subjects. When you knew how anxious I was to find out all
about it! Dick Cavendish is a great deal more a friend of yours than he
was of theirs until this unfortunate business came about, and it seems
very strange that we should know nothing. Why, I don't know even what to
call her,--whether she is still Miss Warrender, or what she is."

"You would not call her Miss Warrender in any case," said the rector,
with a little self-assertion. "And you know that is nonsense, for the
moment the other wife was proved to be living, poor Chatty's marriage
was as if it had not been."

"Well, that is what I cannot understand, Herbert: to be married just
like anybody else, and the ring put on, and everything (by the way, I
did notice that she does not wear her ring), and that it is as if it had
not been. Bigamy one can understand: but how it should mean nothing! And
do you mean to say she could marry somebody else, the same as if it had
never happened?"

"To-morrow if she likes,--and I wish she would, poor Chatty! It would be
the best way of cutting the knot."

"Then I can tell you one thing that all your superior information would
never teach you," cried Mrs. Wilberforce, --"_that she never will!_ You
may take my word for it, Chatty has far too much principle. What! be
married to one man in church, and then go and be married to another!
Never, Herbert! Oh, you may tell me the ceremony is nothing, and that
they must have nothing to say to each other, and all that: it may be
quite true, but that Chatty will ever marry any one else is not true.
She will never do it. For anything I can tell, or you can tell, she may
never see Dick Cavendish again. But she will never marry any one else.
It is very hard to be sure of anything nowadays, when all the landmarks
are being changed, and the country going headlong to---- But if I know
anything, I hope I know Chatty Warrender, and _that_, you may be sure,
she will never do."

This flood of eloquence silenced the rector, and indeed he had no
objection to make: for he was aware of all those sacred prejudices that
live in the hearts of ladies in the country, and he thought it very
likely that Chatty would feel herself bound for ever by what was no bond
at all.

In the meantime there had been only one letter from Dick, a short and
hasty one, telling that he was better, explaining that he had not been
able to let them know of his illness, and announcing that he was off
again as soon as he should