"She's my wife."
Again the man stared at him, but now with a look of consternation and pity.
"You mean to say you didn't know?"
The young man, still leaning against the wall, was unable to speak. A glance at the ashen face convinced the older man that there was no need to repeat the question.
"Well, I'm sorry, and I can only apologize," he said, after a moment's pause, and in a tone of good feeling. He then took his hat and coat from the peg, and suddenly darted out of the flat. The door closed after him with a bang.
IV
The Sailor continued to lean against the wall. An abyss had opened. The look on the face of Mr. Rudge, his late master, and the strange words he had used were returning upon him with awful force.
With this discovery came surprise, bewilderment, self-disgust. It hardly seemed possible that a man in his senses could be so blind, so ignorant, so gullible. Where had been his wits, that he should have allowed the creature at the other side of the passage wall, and her associates, to dupe him so completely?
As the feeling of amazement at his own folly deepened, a gust of fury swept through him like a storm. An overmastering desire came upon him to enter that room, to deal once and for all with this bird of prey. Let the world be rid of a foul thing. Let his be the hand to efface it in its infamy.