“But I don’t suppose you will have any cause for regret on that score,” he observed. “You will have been a bridegroom and a widower in a single day.”
I was silent. His words betrayed him. He knew of the plot conceived by his friend to bribe me to kill the woman to whom I had been so strangely wedded!
But successfully concealing my surprise at his incautious words, I answered—
“Yes, mine will certainly have been a unique experience.”
He courteously offered me a cigarette, and lighting one himself, held the match to me. Then we sat chatting, he telling me what a charming girl Beryl had been until stricken down by disease.
“What was her ailment?” I inquired.
“I am not aware of the name by which you doctors know it. It is, I believe, a complication of ailments. Half a dozen specialists have seen her, and all are agreed that her life cannot be saved. Wynd has spared no expense in the matter, for he is perfectly devoted to her.”
His words, hardly coincided with the truth, I reflected. So far from being devoted to her, he was anxious, for some mysterious reason, that she should not live after midnight.
“To lose her will, I suppose, be a great blow to him?” I observed, with feigned sympathy.
“Most certainly. She has been his constant friend and companion ever since his wife died, six years ago. I’m awfully sorry for both poor Beryl and Wynd.”