Steele hesitated before answering.
“You can’t do that, Bob,” he said, gently. “I was near her as long as could be. I think she is entirely happy now.”
The man in the bed looked up. His eyes read the eyes of the other. If there was in his pulse a leaping sense of release, he gave it no expression.
“Dead?” he whispered.
Steele nodded.
For a time, Marston gazed up at the ceiling with a fixed stare. Then, his face clouded with black self-reproach.
“If I could blot out that injury from memory! God knows I meant it as kindness.”
“There is time enough to forget,” said Steele.
It was some days later that Marston went with Steele to the Hôtel Voltaire. There was much to be explained and done. He learned for the first time the details of the expedition that Steele had made to South America, and then to Europe; of the matter of the pictures and St. John’s connection with them, and of the mystifying circumstances of the name registered at the Elysée Palace Hôtel. That incident they never fathomed.
St. John had buried his daughter in the Cimetière Montmartre. After the first mention of the matter on his recovery to consciousness, Marston had not again alluded to his former wife, until he was able to go to the spot, and place a small tribute on her grave. Standing there, somewhat awestruck, his face became deeply grave, and, looking up at his friend, he spoke with deep agitation: