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My wife had seen the present Mrs. Saxham at Gueldersdorp, and, not knowin' that the surname of Mildare had been taken by her at the wish of her adopted mother, supposed got the maggot into her head that the Mother-Superior's ward might possibly be a a daughter of the man the seal-ring had belonged to, knowing Lord! what a mull I'm making of it! that Mildare had at one time been engaged to marry that" the Major boggled horribly "that uncommonly brave and noble lady, and had, in fact, thrown her over, and made a bolt of it with the wife of his Regimental C.O., Colonel Sir George Hawting."
"You must understand that the blackguard had given my wife details of Mildare's death at a farm owned by a friend of his in Natal, and that Hannah that my wife knew poor little Lucy Hawting had had a child by Mildare," Major Bingo spluttered. "That was why she asked Van Busch outright whether the girl with the nuns at Gueldersdorp was could be the same child, grown up? By the Living Tinker!
A day came when the secret orchard he had joyed in with that other was threaded with a golden clue, and the hidden bower unveiled to the cold-eyed staring day. Captain Mildare and Lady Lucy Hawting went away together, and from Paris Richard wrote and broke to the girl who loved him, and had been his betrothed wife, the common, vulgar, horrible little truth.
Society raved of her for three seasons, until the fools went even madder about that little Hawting woman a stiff starched martinet's frisky half who bolted with the man my glorious Biddy had given her beautiful hand to. And the result!
She returned: "She was born in the Colony, I believe." "Ah! but of British parents, surely? I once knew an English lady," he went steadily on, "whom she resembles strikingly." Her eyes were inscrutable, and her lips were folded close. "She was the wife of the Colonel commanding my old Regiment Sir George Hawting. A grand old warrior, and something of a martinet.
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