“Whom and what do you fear?”
“I believe that Dr. Boyd has some vague suspicion of the truth,” she responded, after a pause.
“What?” he cried, in quick surprise. “Tell me why. Explain it all to me.”
“There is nothing to explain—save that to-night he seemed to regard my movements with suspicion.”
“Ah! my dear, your fears are utterly groundless,” he laughed. “What can the fellow possibly know? He is assured that I am dead, for he signed my certificate and followed me to my grave at Woking. A man who attends his friend’s funeral has no suspicion that the dead is still living, depend upon it. If there is any object in this world that is convincing it is a corpse.”
“I merely tell you the result of my observations,” she said. “In my opinion he has come here to learn what he can.”
“He can learn nothing,” answered the “dead” man. “If it were his confounded friend Jevons, now, we might have some apprehension; for the ingenuity of that man is, I’ve heard, absolutely astounding. Even Scotland Yard seeks his aid in the solving of the more difficult criminal problems.”
“I tell you plainly that I fear Ethelwynn may expose us,” his wife went on slowly, a distinctly anxious look upon her countenance. “As you know, there is a coolness between us, and rather than risk losing the doctor altogether she may make a clean breast of the affair.”
“No, no, my dear. Rest assured that she will never betray us,” answered Courtenay, with a light reassuring laugh. “True, you are not very friendly, yet you must recollect that she and I are friends. Her interests are identical with our own; therefore to expose us would be to expose herself at the same time.”
“A woman sometimes acts without forethought.”