“Wait till Thursby has gone. Kiss me quickly instead.”
She vanished, her cheeks glowing. A moment later Edith came in.
“Well, our friends are here, but why couldn’t they be content with what’s in the papers?”
He had no time to answer, for the Thursbys were already in the hall. Mrs. Thursby swept in like a fresh breeze, followed by her husband. Derrick thought the latter looked a little sheepish.
“My dear,” said the stout woman explosively to Edith, “what a perfectly awful time you must have had! We were over in France when we read of it, and even now when I think of that woman Perkins it gives me the shivers. I’ve blamed myself so much for not telling your brother everything the first time he came here.”
“Matter of fact,” chimed in Thursby, with a sidelong glance at the portrait, “I didn’t say anything because it didn’t seem necessary. I reckoned that ignorance was bliss so far as you were concerned, and we’d had rather a dose of it ourselves. The agents thought so, too.”
“Perhaps it was,” said Derrick dryly, “and there’s no real harm done. The thing is finally cleared up.”
“As I said before, I could never understand that woman,” went on Mrs. Thursby, “but of course I do now. She must have been disappointed in love early in life, and married Martin to get even with some one else. Women often do that and pay for it afterward. But fancy living with her as we both did! Fancy a mad housemaid at your bedside saying the tea is ready, and thinking, perhaps, about killing one all the time. I wonder what sent her mad, Mr. Derrick. Didn’t you hear that?”
“There was insanity in her family.”
“Had she been like that for long?”