Page:The cream of the jest; a comedy of evasions (IA creamofjestcomed00caberich).pdf/290

 "Don't forget to lock the front door when you come up, Felix." She was out of sight, but he could hear her, as well as the turning of the clock key. "I forgot to tell you I saw Adèle Van Orden to-day, at Greenberg's. They are going down to the Beach Thursday. She told me they haven't had a cook for three days now, and she and old Mrs. Haggage have had to do all the work. She looked it, too—I never saw any one let themselves go all to pieces the way she has—"

"How—? Oh, yes," he mumbled, intent upon his reading; "it is pretty bad. Don't many of them keep their looks as you do, dear—"

And that was all. He never heard his wife's voice any more. Kennaston read contentedly for a couple of hours, and went to bed. It was in the morning the maid found Mrs. Kennaston dead and cold. She had died in her sleep, quite peacefully, after taking two headache powders, while her husband was contentedly pursuing the thread of a magazine story through the advertising columns

Kennaston had never spoken to her concerning the sigil. Indeed, I do not well see how he could