John Eustace had denied it whenever occasion offered.

The bishop in his quiet way had denied it.

Lady Linlithgow had denied it.

But the lie had been set on foot and had thriven, and there was hardly a man about town who didn't know that Lady Eustace had eight or nine thousand a year, altogether at her own disposal, down in Scotland.

Of course a woman so endowed, so rich, so beautiful, so clever, so young, would marry again, and would marry well.