'Mrs Askerton was a Miss Oliphant.'

'That wasn't the other lady's name. But, independently of that, they
can't be the same. The other lady married a Mr Berdmore.'

'A Mr Berdmore!' Clara as she repeated the name felt convinced that she
had heard it before, and that she had heard it in connexion with Mrs
Askerton. She certainly had heard the name of Berdmore pronounced, or
had seen it written, or had in some shape come across the name in Mrs
Askerton's presence; or at any rate somewhere on the premises occupied
by that lady. More than this she could not remember; but the name, as
she had now heard it from her cousin, became at once distinctly
connected in her memory with her friends at the cottage.

'Yes,' said Belton; 'a Berdmore. I knew more of him than of her, though
for the matter of that, I knew very little of him either. She was a
fast-going girl, and his friends were very sorry. But I think they are
both dead or divorced, or that they have come to grief in some way.'

'And is Mrs Askerton like the fast-going lady?'

'In a certain way. Not that I remember what the fast-going lady was
like; but there was something about this woman that put me in mind of
the other. Vigo was her name; now I recollect it a Miss Vigo. It's nine
or ten years ago now, and I was little more than a boy.'

'Her name was Oliphant.'

'I don't suppose they have anything to do with each other. What riled
me was the way she talked of the shooting. People do when they take a