“Did his wife ever talk to you of her own history?”
“Never. She was very fond of talking to me about her husband’s supposed inconstancy and the mistake she had made in marrying a man who had never cared for her; but about her own people and her own antecedents she was silent as the grave. In a place like Nice, where everybody is idle, there is sure to be a good deal of gossip, and we all had our own ideas about Mrs. Ransome. We put her down as the natural daughter of some person of importance, or, at any rate, of good means. She had her own fortune, and was entirely independent of her husband, who was not a rich man at that time.”
“No, it was his mother’s death that made him rich. But you did not think he had married for money?”
“No; our theory was that he had been worried into marrying her. We thought the lady had thrown herself at his head, and that all her unhappiness sprang from her knowledge that she had in a measure forced him to marry her.”
“Do you remember the name of the house at St. Jean where they lived when they left Nice?”
“Yes, I called there once, but as Mrs. Ransome never returned my call, I concluded that they wished to drop their Nice acquaintance, and I heard afterwards that they were living like hermits in a cave. The house is a low white villa, spread out along the edge of a grassy ridge, with a broad stone terrace on one side and a garden and orchard on the other. It is called Le Bout du Monde.”
“I am very grateful to you, Lady Lochinvar, for having been frank with me. I will go and look at the house where they lived. I may find some one, perhaps, who knew them.”
“You want to make further inquiries?”
“I want to find some one who is as convinced of my husband’s guiltlessness as I am.”
“That will be difficult. There was very little evidence for or against him. The husband and wife went out to walk together one April afternoon. They left the house in peace and amity, as it seemed to their servants; but some ladies who met and talked to them an hour afterwards thought by Mrs. Ransome’s manner that she was on bad terms with her husband. When she was next seen she was lying at the foot of a cliff, dead. That is all that is known of the tragedy. You could hardly hang a man or acquit him upon such evidence. It is a case of not proven.”