“All might be found in a very exceptional girl, such as she is. Why shouldn’t she tell me, if she were married?”
“Oh, don’t expect me to dissect feminine psychology. There I’m quite beyond my depth. But you’ll note she doesn’t seem to have told you any slightest thing about herself. She’s let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud, prey on your damask cheek.”
“Confound your misquotations! It’s true, though. But there might be many reasons.”
“Doubtless. Only, my imagination doesn’t seem to run to them. And reverting to tangible fact, as clenching evidence, there are her gloves, which she always wore.”
“What about her gloves?”
“You never saw her left hand, did you?”
“Oh, I see. You mean the wedding-ring. Well, I suppose,” continued Sedgwick, with a tinge of contempt in his voice, “she could have taken off her ring as easily as her gloves.”
There was no answering contempt in Chester Kent’s voice as he replied, “But a ring, constantly worn and then removed, leaves an unmistakable mark. Perhaps she gave you greater credit for powers of observation than you deserve. I’m afraid, Frank, that she is a married woman; and I’m sure, from reading between your lines, that she is a good woman. What the connection between her and the corpse on the beach may be, is the problem. My immediate business is to discover who the dead woman is.”
“And mine,” said Sedgwick hoarsely, “to discover the living.”
“We’ll at least start together,” replied Kent. “Come!”