‘You are right, madame,’ he replied, sadly, ‘and the little one shall not lack fatherly love and care. Will you come with me for a few moments? I wish to speak to you alone.’
He placed his hand tenderly on the child’s head, and again tried to soothe him, but he shrank away with petulant screams and cries. Walking to the front entrance he waited till he was joined there by the landlady, and they stood talking in the open air.
‘How long had she been here, madame?’ he asked.
‘For a month, monsieur,’ was the reply. ‘She came late in the season for the baths, with her bonne and the little boy, and took my rooms. Pardon, but I did not know madame had a husband living, and so near.’
‘We have been separated for many years. I came to Boulogne yesterday quite by accident, not dreaming the lady was here. Can you tell me if she has friends in Boulogne?’
‘I do not think so, monsieur. She lived quite alone, seeing no one, and her only thought and care was for the little boy. She was a proud lady, very rich and proud; nothing was too good for her, or for the child; she lived, as the saying is, en princesse. But no, she had no friends! Doubtless, being an English lady, though she spoke and looked like a compatriote, all her friends were in her own land.’
‘Just so,’ returned Bradley, turning his head away to hide his tears; for he thought to himself, ‘Poor Mary! After all, she was desolate like myself! How pitiful that I, of all men, should close her eyes and follow her to her last repose!’
‘Pardon, monsieur,’ said the woman, ‘but madame, perhaps, was not of our Church? She was, no doubt, Protestant?’
It was a simple question, but simple as it was Bradley was startled by it. He knew about as much of his dead wife’s professed belief as of the source whence she had drawn her subsistence. But he replied:
‘Yes, certainly. Protestant, of course.’