"I'll be hanged if I know! I shouldn't think it would add to the book's sale if she did—with my remembrance of her pothooks and hangers. You don't live at Wivernsea, do you? I never heard that there was a lunatic asylum there!"
"Lived there for years!"
"Oh! Then perhaps you knew Mabel's husband, Seton-Carr, when he was alive?"
"When—he—was—alive?"
"Yes. Of course! You blithering old idiot, you; what are you looking at me like that for? You don't think that I am such an utter egregious ass as to suggest that you have known him since his death, do you?"
"How long, Dick—how long—how long has he been dead?"
"Nine—ten months now. Between ourselves, there was not much to regret when he added his signature to the big death-roll. Though it's not customary to speak truth of a man who can't speak for himself, is it?"
"Blind! Blind! Blind! She's a widow! Of course! What a fool—what a fool I have been!"
"Hear, hear—large-sized kind!"