I had startled him back into silence. I don't know how long it was before he spoke again. It seemed to me an age.
'Mrs. Merrett! What do you mean?'
'James is dead.'
'Dead! How--how do you know?'
By degrees, in reply to the questions which he put, I told him all that there was to tell. He stood staring at me, biting his finger-nails, as if he found it difficult to turn it into sense.
'Then am I to understand that Montagu Babbacombe is--or was--the Marquis of Twickenham?'
'They say so.'
'But the Twickenham peerage is one of the richest in England?'
'Maybe.'
'Then if he was the Marquis, you, as his wife, are the Marchioness.'