"There was, indeed!" Mr. Payson shook his head solemnly.
The hint now made sure of, she heightened it to make him forget that he himself had given the clue.
"I get a feeling of worry, and what you might call a misunderstanding. You didn't quite get along with each other and it made a good deal of trouble for you. You was what I might call put out, you understand? She's in the spirit now, ain't she?"
"Yes; she died a good many years ago."
Madam Spoll returned to her first fish and began to reel in. "Your wife's passed out, too, and Luella tells me she's here now. She says Grace was worried, too. But she's happy now and wants you to be. You was a young man then, and yet you have never got over it. You wasn't rightly understood, was you?"
Mr. Payson shook his head again. He was listening attentively.
"But it wan't your fault, do you understand? It was something that couldn't be helped. And sometimes when you think of this other lady you say to yourself, 'If she only knew! If she only knew!'"
"Yes, I wish she did. It really wasn't my fault."
Madam Spoll cast more bait into the pool.
"Now, would her given name be Mary, or something like that?"