"Am I wrong?" exclaimed the Colonel, evidently at a loss to understand Cyril's perturbation. "Your wife is in town, isn't she, and ill?"
What should he answer? He dared not risk a denial.
"Who told you that she was ill?" he asked.
"It was in the morning papers. Didn't you see it?"
"In the papers!"
Cyril realised at once that he ought to have foreseen that this was bound to have occurred. Too many people knew the story for it not to have leaked out eventually.
"I have not had time to read them to-day," replied Cyril as soon as he was able to collect his wits a little. "What did they say?"
"Only that your wife had been prostrated by the shock of Wilmersley's murder, and had to be removed from the train to a nursing home."
"It's a bore that it got into the papers. My wife is only suffering from a slight indisposition and will be all right in a day or two," Cyril hastened to assure him.
"Glad to hear it. I must meet her. Where is she staying at present?"