‘Where is she gone?’ exclaimed Mrs Braggett, in a tone of utter amazement.
‘Where is who gone?’ repeated Mr Braggett, hardly able to articulate from fear.
‘The lady in the chair!’
‘There was no one there except in your own imagination. It was my great-coat that you mistook for a figure,’ returned her husband hastily, as he threw the article in question over the back of the arm-chair.
‘But how could that have been?’ said his pretty wife, rubbing her eyes. ‘How could I think a coat had eyes, and hair, and features? I am sure I saw a woman seated there, and that she rose and stared at me. Siggy! tell me it was true. It seems so incomprehensible that I should have been mistaken.’
‘You must question your own sense. You see that the room is empty now, except for ourselves, and you know that no one has left it. If you like to search under the table, you can.’
‘Ah! now, Siggy, you are laughing at me, because you know that would be folly. But there was certainly some one here—only, where can she have disappeared to?’
‘Suppose we discuss the matter at a more convenient season,’ replied Mr Braggett, as he drew his wife’s arm through his arm. ‘Hewetson! you will be able to tell Mr Hume that he was mistaken. Say, also, that I shall not be back in the office to-day. I am not so strong as I thought I was, and feel quite unequal to business. Tell him to come out to Streatham this evening with my letters, and I will talk with him there.’
What passed at that interview was never disclosed; but pretty Mrs Braggett was much rejoiced, a short time afterwards, by her husband telling her that he had resolved to resign his active share of the business, and devote the rest of his life to her and Violet Villa. He would have no more occasion, therefore, to visit the office, and be exposed to the temptation of spending four or five hours out of every twelve away from her side. For, though Mrs Emily had arrived at the conclusion that the momentary glimpse she caught of a lady in Siggy’s office must have been a delusion, she was not quite satisfied by his assertions that she would never have found a more tangible cause for her jealousy.