“No, the man whom she is thinking of marrying?”
“Oh, I see. Well, that’s the curious part of the whole business, for this new lover is the cousin of her husband, one time a barrister, but now out here in the Mounted Police. What did you say? A strange story. Yes, it is that; but there is one piquant detail that you have not yet heard, sir!”
“What is that?”
“Well, it is this, the husband, as I informed you, is the heir to an old estate in Westmorland. He had a younger brother who since the elder’s disappearance had slipped into the position of heir—at least people had come to look upon him as such, it being fairly well known that the elder could not return to claim the succession. This younger son is dead——”
“Dead!” The word came in a gasp from Dick Bracknell’s lips, and immediately after he was taken with a fit of coughing which lasted for some little time, and left him exhausted with his face hidden in his hands.
“Your cough is very bad, sir,” said Rayner with affected sympathy. “Are you sure that you wish me to continue the narrative?”
Bracknell lifted a tortured face, and in his deep-sunk eyes there was a moisture that was more than suspicious. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Go on!”
“As you wish,” replied Rayner with affected solicitude, and then continued, “As I was saying, this younger son is dead——”
“How did he die?” interrupted Bracknell.
“Something went wrong with his gun when he was out grouse shooting. It burst, I believe, anyhow it killed him, and by his death, failing the succession of the older son, the cousin becomes the heir, and you have the rather unique situation of the cousin stepping into the shoes of the heir and the husband at one and the same time. Quite a little drama in its way, is it not?”