"He is dead."
Truly honestly, do you know, I couldn't go on. I did find out that he had been dead eighteen months and they had been married for less than a year and there were no children. That, at least, was her story; one had no opportunity of testing it or catching her out ... even if one had wanted to. Who she was before, where the money came from, if there was any money—not a word! To this day I don't know whether she hailed from Paraguay or Venezuela...
"She is a widow," I was able to tell Will; and indeed I took great pains to scotch these ridiculous stories which had been swirling round London when I left. It was cruel that any one should say such things of any woman; and, if my boy ever thought fit to drop the handkerchief, I did not want to have any explaining-away to do. She was greatly attracted to him, and I fancy that the one doubt in his mind was the immense difference in blood and breeding: Roman Catholic (I presume; I have no certain knowledge even of that) and Anglican, Latin and Anglo-Saxon ... and so forth and so on. We really knew so very little about her that my boy prudently and properly did not seek to press his advantage with her prematurely...
I sometimes feel that in London one uproots one lie only to make room for another. A few days' "propaganda", as Will would say, convinced people that "the mystery woman", as some one christened her, had no homicidal husband lurking with a revolver behind the nearest bush. But a different story became wide-spread ... indeed, universally repeated and almost universally believed. The old story, I should say, was revived. People said that she had come over with a few thousands and had spent every penny of it.
"I have no more knowledge than you have," said Major Blanstock, when I tackled him about it one day at Brackenbury; and then he added with rather a tiresome assumption of virtue: "I didn't feel it was my affair."
"But you're her friend," I said.
"If she gives me an opportunity of proving it."
"And in some ways her sponsor," I said.
"Oh, I would stand sponsor for her at all times," he answered. "If your story is true, she will have an opportunity of proving the quality of all her friends."
And there the thing ended, so far as we were concerned. Brackenbury had lent us the house for two months; but, when Consuelo left us after a fortnight, we were not sorry to return the following day to London. I was in terror that Will might commit himself before we had really found out anything; but, the moment these stories began circulating again, he very wisely retired into his shell; I suppose it was because she felt that no progress was being made that Consuelo curtailed her visit. Or, perhaps, with that restlessness of hers, she was simply bored; my feelings would not suffer if she told me that one dull old woman... I should explain that our scheme of house-parties broke down; the women, indeed, came, but man after man failed us at the last moment. One spent Friday morning despatching one's staff in turn to the telephone with names and more names and yet more names...