"Your wife?" Garth repeated, in surprise.
"Yes. The young, lovely, and pious orphan daughter of a clergyman, who fell in love with me on board ship and decided to take in hand my reformation. There never was such a perfect woman—if, indeed, she's alive still; but as, when I wrote, she'd had nothing to eat for three days—and I can swear she's had nothing since—she may very likely be dead by this time!"
Captain Garth was neither a good nor a scrupulous man, but he had the remnants of a heart about him, and his companion's words shocked and startled him.
"Are you mad or drunk, Armstrong?" he cried. "Do you really mean to tell me your wife is here in Boulogne starving?"
Armstrong turned and looked at him. Then he thrust his hands into his empty pockets and burst out laughing.
"Why, you old idiot," he exclaimed, "she's only my wife on paper! What in the world should I want to burden myself with a wife for? Uncle Alec has always been soft-hearted about women, probably because he's had very little to do with them and doesn't know what fools and plagues they are; so the idea came into my head to pitch this starving-wife story, and see whether that would move him. But I don't hope much from it."
"It would be rather awkward, though, if he took you at your word and asked you to produce her!"
"Nothing less likely. He has frequently stated in the letters of good advice he sent me at Melbourne that he never wished to set eyes on me again; and Heaven knows I am not hungering for a sight of the sanctimonious old bag of bones! My precious cousin is now the darling of his eye, the industrious apprentice and good boy, and all that sort of thing! He has been taken into the bank, and, no doubt, will get the old screw's money when he dies—if he ever will die, which I am beginning to doubt! He never would if I were his heir, for certain. Curse my luck!"
Clearly Armstrong was in a communicative mood as he strode along, every now and then savagely kicking the stones on the pathway. His last franc had been spent on a dose of fiery cognac, which, taken after long fasting, had mounted to his brain and brought on a talkative mood. All the time they conversed the two men were mounting the dusty white road which led to the High Town, Armstrong insensibly and Garth by design.