"Perhaps it's a widowed sister," Gertrude suggested.
"Then why doesn't he say so? and why doesn't he go there and live with her, instead of boarding at a hotel? and why doesn't she ever go out with him? They say she never goes out at all, but keeps hid away there like a criminal."
"I'd like to know how the fellows, as you call them, could have found all this out unless they employ spies?" Gertrude spoke testily, feeling a strong inclination to stand up for the man who had paid her a handsome compliment. "There probably are two Falconers. I know there's nothing wrong about my Mr. Falconer, otherwise Mr. Richmond wouldn't have introduced him to me."
"I wish I had thought to inquire if he's the man, but till this moment I've not thought of that talk of the boys since I heard it. It takes women to remember scandal and repeat it," said Brother Tom sagely. "But I'll inquire about it, Gerty. Don't go to dreaming about Mr. Falconer till I find out."
"Hold your tongue, you great idjiot!" said Gertrude, wrapping with lazy grace a bright shawl about her and settling herself on a sofa to nap off the party drowsiness. "Go on down town and find out," she continued, her heavily-lashed lids dropping over the sleepy eyes: "go along!"
So Tom went down town, Gertrude went to sleep, and Susan was left to her thoughts. What had these thoughts been about all these weeks that the question had never arisen as to the connection between Mr. Falconer and the woman who occupied her house, "Who is she?" Now, indeed, Susan asked the question with a burning at her heart. If she was simply a friend or a sister, why this reticence and mystery of which Tom had spoken? If she was his wife, why any reticence or mystery? Besides, Mr. Falconer had said he was a bachelor.
Susan could contrive no answers to these questions that brought any relief to her vexed heart. She had no courage to make inquiries of others, lest the character of her interest might be discovered. Guilt made her cowardly.
She was yet turning the matter over and over when Brother Tom returned. She scanned his face with a keen scrutiny, eager to get at what he had learned, yet not daring to ask a question.
When Tom had pinched Gertrude's drowsy ear into consciousness he poured into it this unwelcome information: "I've found out that your Mr. Falconer is the man. But who the lady is I have not been able to discover. She is an inscrutable mystery—a good heroine for Wilkie Collins."
"Who told you?" Gertrude demanded in a challenging tone.