"A woman!--why a woman?"
"Eh, why? I don't know. Why should the poor devil have been killed at all?"
"Yes, why should he have been killed at all, that's what William and I want to know," bleated Aunt Judy. "How does Lady Jenny take it, Brenda, dear?"
"Oh, very quietly. She is much less grieved than I had expected her to be."
"H'm!" rasped the colonel, in a parade voice. "I dare say she is pleased for that matter. Most of 'em are when they bury their husbands. I can fancy Julia smiling when I toddle."
"Oh, William, how can you? By the way, has Lady Jenny been left well off, Brenda?"
"No, I am afraid not. She says Mr. Malet was terribly extravagant."
"He was a gambler," shouted the colonel, "well known round the clubs. When he wasn't dropping it at Monte Carlo, he was running amuck on 'Change. Always had bad luck that chap," added he, rubbing his nose; "lost thousands. The wonder is he didn't go under long ago. Shouldn't be surprised to hear Lady Jenny had been left without a sixpence."
"Oh, no, uncle; she has ten thousand pounds at least; her husband's life was insured for that, and she says his creditors can't touch that."
"Perhaps not, but hers can. I knew old Lord Scilly--no end of a spendthrift, and his daughter's like him, or I'm mistaken. Women are all spendthrifts----"