But Mr. Clarence looked from the brother to the sister and back again in the utmost perplexity.
"What sort of a stupid joke are you two trying to get off?" he inquired.
They had by this time reached the public parlor of the hotel and found seats.
"Is it possible, Uncle Clarence, that you do not know Mr. Rockharrt was married on the thirty-first of last month, in New York, to Mrs. Stillwater?" inquired Cora.
"Why should you be amazed or incredulous, Uncle Clarence? The incomprehensible feature, to my mind, is that you should not have heard of the affair directly from grandfather himself. Has he really not written and told you of his marriage?"
"He has never told me a word of his marriage, though he has written a dozen or more letters to me within the last few weeks."
"That is very extraordinary. And did you not hear any rumor of it? Did no one chance to see the notice of it in the papers?"
"No one that I know of. No; I heard no hint of my father's marriage from any quarter, nor had I, nor any one else at Rockhold or at North End, the slightest suspicion of such a thing."
"That is very strange. It must have been in the papers," said Sylvan.
"If it was I did not see it, but, then, I never think of looking at the marriage list."
"I am inclined to think that it never got into the papers. The marriage was private, though not secret. And you, Sylvan, should have seen that the marriage was inserted in all the daily papers. It was your special duty as groomsman. But you must have forgotten it, and I never remembered to remind you of it," said Cora.
"Not I. I never forgot it, because I never once thought of it. Didn't know it was my duty to attend to it. Besides, I had so many duties. Such awful duties! Think of my having to be my own grandmother's church papa and give her away at the altar! That duty reduced me to a state of imbecility from which I have not yet recovered."
"But," said Mr. Clarence, with a look of pain on his fine, genial countenance, "it is so strange that my father never mentioned his marriage in any of his letters to me."
"Perhaps he did not like to mix up sentiment with business," kindly suggested Sylvan.
"I don't think it was a question of sentiment," sighed Mr. Clarence.