Montagu Kingdon had been dead some years when that happened." "Is that last letter still in existence ?" I asked.
"Yes; my first wife kept it with the rest of her family letters and papers.

Dorothy takes care of them now.

We country folks set store by those sort of things, you know." I would fain have asked Mr.Mercer to let me see this last letter written by Susan Meynell; but what excuse could I devise for so doing?
I was completely fettered by my promise to George Sheldon, and could offer no reasonable pretence for my curiosity.
There was one point which I was bound to push home in the interests of my Sheldon, or, shall I not rather say, of my Charlotte?
That all-important point was the question of marriage or no marriage.

"You feel quite clear as to the fact that Montagu Kingdon never did marry this young woman ?" I said.
"Well, yes," replied uncle Joe; "that was proved beyond doubt, I'm sorry to say.

Mr.Kingdon never could have dared to come back here with his West-Indian wife in poor Susan Meynell's lifetime if he had really married her." "And how about the lady he was said to have married in Spain ?" "I can't say anything about that.