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274 Trent flushed. 'Do you really want to know?' he said.

'I ask you,' she retorted quietly.

'You ask me to humiliate myself again, Mrs. Manderson. Very well. I will tell you what I thought I should most likely find when I returned to London after my travels: that you had married Marlowe and gone to live abroad.'

She heard him with unmoved composure. 'We certainly couldn't have lived very comfortably in England on his money and mine,' she observed thoughtfully. 'He had practically nothing then.'

He stared at her–'gaped', she told him some time afterwards. At the moment she laughed with a little embarrassment.

'Dear me, Mr. Trent! Have I said anything dreadful? You surely must know. . . . I thought everybody understood by now. . . . I'm sure I've had to explain it often enough. . . if I marry again I lose everything that my husband left me.'

The effect of this speech upon Trent was curious. For an instant his face was flooded with the emotion of surprise. As this passed away he gradually drew himself together, as he