‘We don’t quite agree philosophically, for he is too thick with Bradlaugh’s party, but I know he’s coming round to Agnosticism. Poor Tom! He is so clever, and has been so unfortunate. He married miserably, you know.’
‘Indeed,’ said Alma, not much interested.
‘There was a black-eyed sibyl of a woman who admired one of the Socialist lecturers, and when he died actually went to his lodgings, cut off his head, and carried it home under her cloak in the omnibus.’
‘Horrible!’ said Alma with a shudder. ‘But what for?’
‘To boil, my dear, so that she might keep the skull as a sacred relic! When Tom was introduced to her she had it under a glass case on her mantelpiece. Well, she was a very intellectual creature, wonderfully “advanced,” as they call it, and Tom was infatuated enough to make her his wife. They lived together for a year or so; after which she took to Spiritualism, and finally died in a madhouse. So poor Tom’s free, and I hope when he marries again he’ll be more lucky.’
Of course Miss Combe did not for a moment believe that her brother would have ever had any attraction in the eyes of her rich friend; for Tom Combe was the reverse of winsome, even to humbler maidens—few of whom felt drawn to a man who never brushed his hair, had a beard like a Communist refugee, and smelt strongly of beer and tobacco. But blood is thicker than water, and Miss Combe could not forbear putting in a word in season.
The word made little or no impression. The stately beauty walked silently on full of her own thoughts and dreams.