‘It was really too bad of you, Sir William, to hoax us all in the way you have done,’ simpered her ladyship when the process of introduction to the colonel was over. She did not forget that elderly baronets have occasionally fallen victims to the wiles of good-looking widows. ‘But for my part, I must confess that from the first I had my suspicions that you were not the person you gave yourself out to be. There was about you a sort of je ne sais quoi, an impalpable something, which caused me more than once to say to myself: “Any one can see that that dear Mr Etheridge is a gentleman born and bred—one who has been in the habit of moving in superior circles. He must have known reverses. Evidently, at one period of his life, he has occupied a position very different from that of an amanuensis.”’
‘Madam, you flatter me,’ replied the baronet with a grave inclination of the head. ‘As I have had occasion to remark before, your ladyship’s acumen is something phenomenal.’
The widow was rather doubtful as to the meaning of ‘acumen;’ but she accepted it as a compliment. ‘And now, dear Sir William, that you have come and seen and judged for yourself, you will have no difficulty in making up your mind how to act.’
‘My mind is already made up, Lady Renshaw.’
‘Ah—just so. Under the painful circumstances of the case, you could have no hesitation as to the conclusion at which you ought to arrive. What a fortunate thing that I happened to find that scrap of paper in the way I did!’
‘Very fortunate indeed, because, as I remarked this morning, it might have fallen into the hands of some one much less discreet than your ladyship. As it happened, however, although I did not say so to you at the time, it told me nothing that I did not know already.’
‘Nothing that you did not know already!’ gasped her ladyship.
‘Nothing. Madame De Vigne, of her own free will, had already commissioned her friend, Colonel Woodruffe, to tell me without reservation the whole history of her most unhappy married life.’
‘What an idiot the woman must be!’ was her ladyship’s unspoken comment; but she only stared into the baronet’s face in blank amazement. Recovering herself with an effort, she said with a cunning smile: ‘People sometimes make a merit of confessing that which they can no longer conceal. You will know how to appraise such a statement at its proper worth. You say that your mind is already made up, Sir William. I think that from the first there could be no doubt as to what the result would be.’
‘Very little doubt, indeed,’ he answered drily. ‘For instance, here is a proof of it.’