“Why, it’s Jack—Jack Faro. How are you, Jack, old man?”
The interruption proceeded from Haldane. The man on the bed started and stared, then he recovered himself.
“That’s Haldane, for a tenner,” he pronounced. “I heard you were down in these parts, Haldane, and thought of looking you up, only I heard you’d become such a tearing big swell. Thought you’d not have been over-glad to see me.”
“Oh, bosh! You ought to have known better. By the Lord! didn’t we stand them off in that ruction at Ikey Mo’s, when we’d broken the whole bally bank? Jack and I had to skip over Montsioa’s border for a time, you know, Wagram,” he parenthesised. “We’d done some shooting, you understand—but—we had to.”
“Rather, we had, and we did,” and the adventurer’s eyes lit up over the recollection.
“I say, Jack, d’you ever hear anything of the missis now?” went on Haldane in the cordial-old-comrade tone. “I must have seen her since you did, for I was passing through Kimberley only half-a-dozen years back, and she was throwing out fire and slaughter against you as hard as ever.”
Wagram, taking this in with all his ears, felt that an immense weight had lifted. Haldane had known this man’s former wife, had seen her quite lately. She was probably alive still.
“Oh, she’s got nothing to complain of,” returned the adventurer testily. “I’ve never kept her short.”
“Of course not. But, you know, women are the devil for grievances, and she was always swearing that, as your lawful wife, her place was with you.”
“I’d have murdered her long ago if it had been,” was the weary reply. “I shunted her to save her life and my neck. Women are the very devil, Haldane. I can’t think why the blazes they were ever invented.”