Page:A Gentleman's Gentleman.djvu/40



"Three weeks ago," he said, just like a man dreaming, while he took up his hat mechanically. "That could not be; I was with her then."

"Then you are a relation?" said I.

"I am her husband," he replied; and the remembrance of that fact caused him to hold himself erect and to look me straight in the face. "I am her husband, and if any thing like that had happened, should not I be the first to know of it?"

"Properly you ought to be, sir," said I, "but perhaps you weren't in London then."

"I have been in London for three months," he answered, raising his voice suddenly. "I know you are telling me a lie—by God! how dare you?"

"It is no lie," I replied; and sorry for him I was, for the tears were now running down his face like rain. "If you are the lady's husband, sir, it is you who ought to have the picture I have been carrying about with me since the day after Miss More died. I'll fetch it for you."

With this I ran upstairs to my room and took the photograph out of my box. I was away a couple of minutes, perhaps; but when I came down again he was still standing fingering his hat in the hall, and he didn't appear to have moved a foot since I left him. I was half frightened to give him the picture, so strange was his manner; but the dead woman had wished it, and I meant to respect her words.

"Here it is, sir," said I. "It was her wish that you should have it, and no thought of ours."