Page:The Lesson of the Master, The Marriages, The Pupil, Brooksmith, The Solution, Sir Edmund Orme (New York & London, Macmillan & Co., 1892).djvu/273

Rh Henry Wilmerding. For this, however, I waited in vain; so that at last I broke out: "I suppose you know he's gone?"

"Whom are you talking about?"

"Veronica's promesso sposo. He quitted Rome yesterday."

She was silent a moment; then she replied—"I didn't know it."

I thought this odd, but I believed what she said, and even now I have no doubt it was true. "It's all off," I went on: "I suppose you know that."

"How do you know it?" she smiled.

"From his own lips; he told me, at his door, when I bade him good-bye. Didn't you really know he had gone?" I continued.

"My dear friend, do you accuse me of lying?"

"Jamais de la vie—only of joking. I thought you and he had become so intimate."

"Intimate—in three or four days? We've had very little communication."

"How then did you know his marriage was off?"

"How you cross-examine one! I knew it from Veronica."

"And is it your work?"

"Ah, mine—call it rather yours: you set me on."

"Is that what you've been so busy with that you couldn't send me a message?" I asked.

"What shall I say? It didn't take long."

"And how did you do it?"

"How shall I tell you—how shall I tell?"

"You said you would tell me. Did you go to Mrs. Goldie?"

"No, I went to the girl herself."

"And what did you say?"