“That’s lively!” he said. “He never married that woman; and, if he did, she died long ago.”
As he spoke, the lady passenger, having had some talk with the hotel people, came over to him with a beaming smile. “And ye’re Charlie Gordon,” she said with a mellifluous mixture of brogue and bush-drawl. “An’ ye don’t know me now, a little bit? Ye were a little felly when we last met. I’m Peggy Donohoe that was—Peggy Grant now, since I married poor dear Grant that’s dead. And, sure, rest his sowl!”—here she sniffed a little—“though he treated me cruel bad, so he did! Ye’ll remember me brother Mick—Mick with the red hair?”
“Yes,” said Charlie, slowly and deliberately, “I remember him well; and you too. And look here, Peggy Donohoe—or Peggy Keogh, whichever you call yourself—you and Red Mick will have the most uphill fight you ever fought before you get one sixpence of William Grant’s money. Why, your real husband is here on the coach with us!”
He turned and pulled Considine forward, and once more husband and wife stood face to face. Considine, alias Keogh, smiled in a sickly way, tried to meet his wife’s eyes, and failed altogether. She regarded him with a bold, unwinking stare.
“Him!” she said. “Him me husban’! This old crockerdile? I never seen him before in me life.”
A look of hopeless perplexity settled on Considine’s features for a moment, and then a ray of intelligence seemed to break in on him. She repeated her statement.
“I never seen this man before in me life. Did I? Speak up, now, and say, did I?”
Considine hesitated for a moment in visible distress. Then, pulling himself together, and looking boldly from one to the other, he replied—
“Now that you mention it, ma’am, I don’t think as ever you did. I must ha’ made some mistake.”
He walked rapidly away, leaving Gordon and Peggy face to face.