Page:Terminations (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1895).djvu/181

Rh been here and seen you. Somehow he seems to trust me. I told him how we happened to come together yesterday, and he recognizes that I've a peculiar right."

Dencombe looked at him with a calculating earnestness. "How have you squared the countess?"

The young man blushed a little, but he laughed. "Oh, never mind the countess!"

"You told me she was very exacting."

Dr. Hugh was silent a moment. "So she is."

"And Miss Vernham's an intrigante."

"How do you know that?"

"I know every thing. One has to, to write decently!"

"I think she's mad," said limpid Dr. Hugh.

"Well, don't quarrel with the countess—she's a present help to you."

"I don't quarrel," Dr. Hugh replied. "But I don't get on with silly women." Presently he added: "You seem very much alone."

"That often happens at my age. I've outlived, I've lost by the way."

Dr. Hugh hesitated; then surmounting a soft scruple: "Whom have you lost?"

"Every one."

"Ah, no!" the young man murmured, laying a hand on his arm.

"I once had a wife—I once had a son. My wife died when my child was born, and my boy, at school, was carried off by typhoid."