'I don't understand her in the very faintest atom; do you? Do you think she's--quite right in her mind?'
'Hush!' said the other.
She came to me. And I saw that she wasn't so very old after all. While for loveliness I had never seen anything like her. Compared to her I was like a doll. She was beautifully dressed, and she had a way about her I can't describe. And such a voice it did you good to hear her speak.
'Sit down, my dear,' she said. I sat down, and she sat down beside me. 'Now tell me all about it from the beginning. Where do you live?'
'At 32 Little Olive Street, Vauxhall Bridge Road.'
'And you say that your name is Merrett, and your husband is known as Mr. Montagu Babbacombe. What is he?'
'Anything and everything.'
'That's rather vague.'
'The last thing he did was a thirty days' sleep at the Royal Aquarium.'
'A thirty days' sleep. Now I think I begin to understand. I remember reading something about it in the papers. So that was your husband?'