"No," said the English lawyer very seriously, "no, Nancy, I do not believe that your husband is dead. It is clear that had he been killed or injured that first morning in the Paris streets we should know it by now. The police assert, and I have no reason to doubt them, that they have made every kind of enquiry. No, they, like me, believe that your husband has left Paris."
"Left Paris?" repeated Nancy in a bewildered tone.
"Yes, my dear. As to his motive in doing so—I suppose—forgive me for asking you such a question—I suppose that you and he were on quite comfortable and—well, happy terms together?"
Nancy looked at him amazed—and a look of great pain and indignation flashed into her face.
"Why of course we were!" she faltered. "Absolutely—ideally happy! You didn't know Jack, Mr. Stephens; you were always prejudiced against him. Why, he's never said—I won't say an unkind word, but a cold or indifferent word since our first meeting. We never even had what is called"—again her lips quivered—'"a lovers' quarrel.'"
"Forgive me," he said earnestly. "I had to ask you. The question as to what kind of relations you and he were on when you arrived in Paris has been raised by almost every human being whom I have seen in the last few days."
"How horrible! How horrible!" murmured Nancy, hiding her face in her hands.
Then she raised her head, and looked straight at the lawyer:—"Tell anyone that asks you that," she exclaimed, "that no woman was ever made happier by a man than my Jack made me. We were too happy. He said so that last evening—he said," she ended her sentence with a sob, "that his happiness made him afraid—"
"Did he?" questioned Mr. Stephens thoughtfully. "That was an odd thing for him to say, Nancy."
But she took no notice of the remark. Instead she, in her turn, asked a question:—"Do the police think that Jack may have left me of his own free will?"