"Well, that's mother."
"I like her face."
"Yes. She thinks I'm dead."
The lady turned away abruptly.
"I'll just carry the tray down to Mrs. Brigg," she said, and she
clattered out with it, and down the stairs.
Julian heard her loudly humming a music-hall song as she went, the
requiem of her dead life with the old woman who held the Bible on her
knees. When she returned, her mouth was hard and her eyes were shining
ominously. Julian was still standing by the mantelpiece. As she came in
he pointed to the photograph of Marr.
"And this?" he asked. "Who's this?"
The lady burst into a shrill laugh of mingled fear and cunning.
"That's the old gentleman!"
"What do you mean?"
"What I say,--the old gentleman, Nick, the devil, if you like it."
"Now you are trying to take a rise out of me."
"Not I, dear," she said. "That's the devil, sure enough."
Either the tea and toast had rendered her exuberant, or the thought
of the old woman who believed her to be dead had driven her into
recklessness. She continued:
"I'd been with him that night I met you, and I was frightened, I tell
you. I'd been mad with fright."
"Why? What had he done to you?"
Julian strove to conceal his eager interest under a light assumption of
carelessness.
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