"You don't mean to say that her husband ill-treats her!"
"No, Miss! I don't exactly say that, I don't know that he does. All I say is that it is very, very strange, but I'd rather say nothing more about it, Miss."
Susan made no further remark just then, but proceeded to select and purchase a few copies of The Family Herald; she knew that if she waited a little longer, the old lady's gossiping instincts would compel her to tell all her story, even without any questioning.
"Do you think, Miss," Mrs. Harris recommenced at last, "that a lady with everything she can have in the way of comfort around her, could get pale and melancholy and hardly ever speak a word to anyone for weeks, without any reason at all?"
"No, I should think not—that is unless she is becoming mad," replied Susan.
"Now that's exactly it, Miss! Is she becoming mad, or is she ill-treated by her husband—it's one or the other—now which is it?"
"Did you say that they quarrelled?"
"I have spoken with the servants—they come over here to get a paper now and again. They say there never was a kinder husband than the doctor—but they can't tell—it may be all his deceit like. I once read of a husband—he was a doctor too—and his wife began to ail; she got paler and thinner and weaker every day. He pretended to love her so much, and was so concerned about her, and he nursed her himself, and allowed none but himself to prepare her food. Well do you know, Miss, at last she died—and what do you think was discovered afterwards?" At this point of her narrative she put on her spectacles and looked steadfastly at Susan.
"I really cannot imagine—what was it?"
"He had been poisoning her all the time for her money—There!" whispered Mrs. Harris in a melo-dramatic voice.