“Of course. I wanted to know what you were saying.”
“There are other ways of ascertaining that without stooping to keyholes,” said her husband.
“I didn’t stoop,” she said, taking him literally. “I could hear what was said without that—especially what you said, Terence. You will raise your voice so on the slightest provocation.”
“And the provocation in this instance was, of course, of the slightest. Since you have heard Captain Tremayne’s story of course you’ll have no difficulty in confirming it.”
“If you still can doubt, O’Moy,” said Tremayne, “it must be because you wish to doubt; because you are afraid to face the truth now that it has been placed before you. I think, Una, it will spare a deal of trouble, and save your husband from a great many expressions that he may afterwards regret, if you go and fetch Dick. God knows, Terence has enough to overwhelm him already.”
At the suggestion of producing Dick, O’Moy’s anger, which had begun to simmer again, was stilled. He looked at his wife almost in alarm, and she met his look with one of utter blankness.
“I can’t,” she said plaintively. “Dick’s gone.”
“Gone?” cried Tremayne.
“Gone?” said O’Moy, and then he began to laugh. “Are you quite sure that he was ever here?”
“But—” She was a little bewildered, and a frown puckered her perfect brow. “Hasn’t Ned told you, then?”