“And she ceased to love him?” He seemed now to interpret the gaze more fully. Did it not foresee? Did it not entreat—though so proudly?
“Ah, I don’t know. All I know is that she stuck to him, and that she was miserable. Poor, poor child!” Mrs. Mostyn repeated.
“And is she dead?” he asked after a little pause in which it seemed to him that they had thrown flowers on a long-forgotten grave.
Mrs. Mostyn looked out of the window at the summer sky and sunny garden, the effort of difficult recollection on her face.
“I really don’t know—I really can’t remember. So soon afterward my husband died; Lady Chanfrey died; I came here to live. I heard from time to time of her misfortunes—of her death I don’t think I heard; but for years now I have heard nothing. How many years ago is it? This is ‘95, and that was—oh, it must have been nearly twenty-eight years ago.”
“So that she would be now?”
“She would be forty-seven now. If she is alive the story of her life is over.”
“I wonder if it is. I wonder if she is alive.”
The gaze of the photograph, with all its calm, grew more profound, more significant.
“Could you find out?” he asked presently.