Perhaps I know your husband.

You have one ?" he added quickly, as he saw the hot blood stain her face and neck to a most unnatural color.
He had not the remotest suspicion that she had never been a wife; he only thought from her agitation that she possibly was a widow, and unconsciously to himself the idea was fraught with a vague feeling of gladness, for, to most men, it is pleasanter knowing they have been polite to a pretty girl, or even a pretty widow, than to a wife, whose lord might object, and Irving was not an exception.

Was she a widow, and had he unwittingly touched the half-healed wound?
He wished he knew, and he stood waiting for her answer to his question, "You have a husband ?" At a glance Adah had read the name upon the card, knowing now who had befriended her.

It was Irving Stanley, Augusta's brother, second cousin to Hugh, and 'Lina was with his sister in New York.

He was going there, he might speak of her, and if she told her name, her miserable story would be known to more than it was already.