"I hope you can forgive me for making your errand so hard. My nerves do not often play me false in this way. You did right to come to me. Now, may I ask you to begin at the beginning and tell me all that you know about this matter? You are correct in your inference; there are some things that I have not understood."
It was rather a long story. Miss Parker, feeling herself dismissed from the place of comforter, went back to her chair and tried to obey directions and begin at the beginning; held closely to her work by keen incisive questions.
Yes, she had known Mr. Somerville before he married Irene Carpenter; or rather, she had known of him, as girls in country villages always knew about any people who came their way. He was an Englishman of good family, a younger son she had heard, though just what significance attached to that, she had not understood at the time. He had the name among the young people of being wild. They had heard that Irene's uncle disapproved of the match, and threatened to lock her up if she tried to have anything more to do with him. She, Mamie, knowing something of Irene's temperament, had always thought that this was what precipitated matters. She knew that Irene was married during her uncle's absence from home, and that there were some exciting scenes after his return.
The newly married couple went abroad very soon, but they stayed only a short time, and rumor had it that they quarrelled with Mr. Somerville's family and were not invited to stay longer. After that, they lived in New York in good style for a few months, and Mrs. Somerville went into society and was said to be very gay. Yes, she had heard a number of things about that winter, but the stories were contradictory and not reliable. Oh, yes, some of the stories were ugly, but gossip was always that; she could not go into details about that period; there was nothing reliable, and nothing that she cared to talk of. It was when the child was about six months old that her father and mother quarrelled and separated. Oh, yes, there was a divorce; she had made an effort to discover the truth about that, for the little girl's sake, and was sure of it. The mother went abroad with some friends and remained there for several years.