“Oh, that yarn isn’t true. Henrietta made it all up. She bribed the servants to keep it quiet, and she made up the whole story. It couldn’t be, you know, that he really got out of those locked doors. Unless you’re going over to Mrs. Webb’s Spirit theory!”
“Good gracious, no! But, she says she’s going to see a clairvoyant about Kimball, and she’ll find out the truth that way.”
“Poppycock! Of course she could learn nothing, but if she could, she would have done so long ago. It’s nearly three weeks now since that he’s been gone, and nobody has done one thing toward finding him. That proves the Webbs did it. If he had been kidnapped or killed, the police would have found it out. But the Webbs can keep him hidden indefinitely; and they’re going to do it, until after your birthday.”
“If they’ll give him back to me then,—I’ll be glad!”
“Elsie, don’t talk like that. And, dear, I wish you would look at the matter sensibly. You can’t mean to give up five million dollars—for a mere bit of sentiment—”
“Don’t call my love for Kimball a mere bit of sentiment! You don’t know what love means—”
“Don’t say that! I guess if your husband had been killed in the war, you’d—”
“Killed in the war! That’s a glorious fate! Philip died honourably, fighting for his country, and you can be proud of him! While I am not only deprived of my love, my mate, but I’ve no notion where he is, or what suffering he’s undergoing! Oh, Gerty, your sorrow is a great one, I know, but it’s nothing to mine!”
“You talk like a silly girl! You can’t feel the same about a lover as I do about a husband and the father of my children! And you can marry some one else,—you can look on Kimball merely as a dear memory—”
“You can marry some one else, too!”