Page:The Private Life, Lord Beaupré, The Visits (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1893).djvu/70

60 "Just where it ought to—just where he would have been, and where I should have seen him, had he been like other people."

I had listened with the deepest interest, but it was my duty to think of objections. "How long a time elapsed between the moment you perceived his absence and the moment you called?"

"Oh, only an instant. I don't pretend it was long."

"Long enough for you to be sure?" I said.

"Sure he wasn't there?"

"Yes; and that you were not mistaken, not the victim of some hocus-pocus of your eyesight?"

"I may have been mistaken, but I don't believe it. At any rate, that's just why I want you to look in his room."

I thought a moment. "How can I, when even his wife doesn't dare to?"

"She wants to; propose it to her. It wouldn't take much to make her. She does suspect."

I thought another moment. "Did he seem to know?"