"Did he manage the lead coffin as well as the first one?" continued Jelly, in a hard, sarcastic tone, which she found it impossible to suppress. "And then there was the third coffin, after that?"
"I went and soldered down the lead myself. The men took up the last one and made all ready."
"Were you not afraid to run the risk, Thomas Hepburn?" asked Jelly, tauntingly, for she despised the man for being so unsuspicious.
"The rooms had been well disinfected then, the doctor said. Any way, we took no harm."
That Thomas Hepburn had never discerned cause for the slightest suspicion of unfair play on the part of Dr. Rane was evident. Jelly, in her superior knowledge, could have shaken him for it. In his place she felt sure she should not have been so obtuse. Jelly forgot that it was only that superior knowledge that enabled her to see what was hidden from others: and that whilst matters, from Hepburn's point of view, looked all right; from her own, they were all wrong.
"Well, I must be wishing you good-evening, I suppose," she said. "I've left only Riah in the house--and she's of no mortal use to anybody, except for company. With people dying about one like this, one gets to feel dull, all alone."
"So one does," answered the undertaker. "Don't go yet."
Jelly had not risen. She sat looking at the fire, evidently deep in thought. Presently she turned her keen eyes on the man again.
"Thomas Hepburn, did you ever see a ghost?"
He received the question as calmly and seriously as though she had said, Did you ever see a funeral? And shook his head negatively.