Let a pretty woman live alone--the tongues of men will do the rest." "It was not so bad as that," said Barbara dryly; "they said she had divorced her husband." Caught out thus characteristically riding past the hounds Courtier bit his lips.
"You had better hear the story now.

Her father was a country parson, and a friend of my father's; so that I've known her from a child.

Stephen Lees Noel was his curate.

It was a 'snap' marriage--she was only twenty, and had met hardly any men.

Her father was ill and wanted to see her settled before he died.