"And I repeat, Uncle Fabian, that I have no positive knowledge of any--"
"Yes; so you said before," he exclaimed, interrupting her. "You have no positive knowledge, but you have very strong suspicions founded upon very solid grounds! Now, what are these grounds, my dear? I am your uncle. You should give me your confidence."
If Mr. Fabian had not put the matter in this way, and if they had not been driving along the dark and over-shadowed road where the meeting branches of the trees above almost hid the light of the stars, so that only one or two occasionally gleamed through the foliage, Cora would never have been able to reply to her uncle as she did.
"Uncle Fabian, do you remember a certain warm night in September some five years ago, when we stopped at the Wirt House in Baltimore?"
"On our way home from Canada--yes, I do."
"My room was close that night and I could not sleep. A little after midnight I got up and put oil my dressing-gown and went into the adjoining room, which was our private parlor, and I sat down in a cool corner in the shadow of the curtain and in the draught of the window. I fell asleep, but was soon awakened by the sound of a door opening and some one whispering. I was about to call out when I recognized your voice. The room was pitch dark. I could not see you; but then I was about to speak, when I recognized another voice--Mrs. Stillwater's. You had let yourself in by your own key, through the door leading from the hall. She had come in through the door leading from her room, which was on the opposite side of the parlor from mine."
Cora paused to wait for the effect of her words.
"I sat there quite still, too much surprised to speak or move."
"And so you overheard that interview," said Mr. Fabian, with a dash of anger in his usually pleasant voice.
"I could not escape. I was amazed, spellbound, too confused to know what to do."
"I gathered from your words that you and she were either secretly married or secretly engaged to be married."
"What other opinion could I form? You were providing her with a house and an income. She was speaking of herself as a daughter-in-law sure to be acceptable to your father and mother. Of course, I judged from that that you were either wedded or betrothed, which was an incomprehensible thing to me, who had been led to believe that the lady was the wife of Captain Stillwater, remaining in Baltimore to meet her husband, whose ship was then daily expected to arrive."