Shady looked with an expression of innocent surprise. 'My grandmother Elizabeth?' he asked.
'Yes; commonly called Bet Eggs,' said the doctor.
'Is she not dead?' his large eyes dilating with a questioning look, which Dr. Cruden could not quite understand.
'Ay; is she, or is she not? that is the point.'
'I have been given to believe she died,' said Shady, quite forgetting the stranger, in the interest this question had excited in him.
'Do you believe it?' asked the doctor.
'Why should I not?'
'No evasions,' said the doctor, rather sharply; 'answer me plainly. Is she living?'
'Sir,' said Shady, glancing at Marjory, 'at another time I might speak of this—'
'This time—now,' said the doctor; 'the truth is, Higgs, she is not dead, and you know it, and you know why her existence is concealed, and you know—'