Drumpipes was amused at the notion, and chuckled. Then his face and voice lapsed into solemnity. “Davie,” he said, “I’ve no wish to vex you, but it’s a bad business. You’ll not win your way through without much expense and soreness of heart. You can take that from me, who should know if any man does.”
Mosscrop accepted the portentous gravity of the tone in good faith. He nodded, as he looked hard at his friend. “Ay, I know,” he said, softly. “But I have no despair, and few doubts about it all, Archie. I am very happy in the thought of going forward with it; so happy that I see I never knew what happiness meant before. And if—we’ll put it at the worst possible—if disappointment should come out of it, why, I shall already have had the joy. And even if it broke me, what would it matter? I should only be back again where I was yesterday, and no one on earth would be the worse for that. But with you it was different.”
The Earl nodded in turn, and smoked his pipe. At last, without lifting his voice or disclosing special interest in his hews, he said, “Man, she’s dead.”
David’s eyes dilated. “What’s that—she—your wife, do you mean, is dead?”
“Ay, four months since,” replied the other quietly.
Mosscrop came over and shook hands with his friend. “I will take a drink with you, after that,” he said, and filled a glass. “Tell me about it.”
“I know nothing about it—except that she is dead. That is enough, quite enough.” He lifted his tumbler. “Here’s to the heating arrangements in the warmest corner down below.”
“A foul cat!” said David, with a harsh tremor in his voice, sipping the toast.
“A very pretty woman,” answered the Earl, musingly. “Hair like a new primrose, face like an earl Christian martyr, dearest little feet you ever imagined. You never saw her. You would have wanted to die for her on the spot. She would have made a single bite of you, my friend. I was a good deal tougher mouthful, but I got mangled more or less in the operation. These are the things that make one grateful for the religious influences of childhood. I should be downhearted just now if I were not able to believe in a Hell.”
“There is no doubt about the thing—she is really dead?”