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The mistress repeated the words. Miss Restall had passed a quieter night, and had been able for a few hours to leave her room. He asked next if any reply to his letter had arrived. No reply had been received.

If Adela definitely abstained from writing to him, the conclusion would be too plain to be mistaken. She had given him up–and who could blame her?

There was a knock at the street-door. The mistress looked out.

“Here’s Mr. Stone come back, sir!” she exclaimed joyfully–and hurried away to let him in.

Cosway never looked up when his friend appeared.

“I knew I should succeed,” said Stone. “I have seen your wife.”

“Don’t speak of her,” cried Cosway. “I should have murdered her when I saw her face, if I had not instantly left the house. I may be the death of the wretch yet, if you presist in speaking of her!”

Stone put his hand kindly on his friend’s shoulder.

“Must I remind you that you owe something to your old comrade?” he asked. “I left my father and mother, the morning I got your letter–and my one thought has been to serve you. Reward me. Be a man, and hear what is your right and duty to know. After that, if you like, we will never refer to the woman again.”

Cosway took his hand, in silent acknowledgment that he was right. They sat down together. Stone began.

“She is so entirely shameless,” he said, “that I had no difficulty in getting her to speak. And she so cordially hates you that she glories in her own falsehood and treachery.”

“Of course, she lies,” Cosway said bitterly, “when she calls herself Miss Benshaw?”

“No; she is really the daughter of the man who founded the great house in the City. With every advantage that wealth and position could give her the perverse creature married one of her father’s clerks, who had been deservedly dismissed from his situation. From that moment her family discarded her. With the money procured by the sale of her jewels, her husband took the inn which we have such bitter cause to remember–and she managed the house after his death. So much for the past. Carry your mind on now to the time when our ship brought us back to England. At that date, the last surviving member of your wife’s family–her elder brother–lay at the point of death. He had taken his father’s place in the business, besides inheriting his father’s fortune. After a happy married life he was left a widower, without children; and it became necessary that he should alter his will. He deferred performing his duty. It was only at the time of his last illness that he had dictated instructions for a new will, leaving his wealth (excepting certain legacies to old friends) to the hospitals of Great Britain and Ireland. His lawyer lost no time in carrying out the instructions. The new will was ready for signature (the old will having been destroyed by his own hand), when the doctors sent a message to say that their patient was insensible, and might die in that condition.”

“Did the doctors prove to be right?”

“Perfectly right. Our wretched landlady, as next of kin, succeeded, not only to the fortune, but (under the deed of partnership) to her late brother’s place in the firm: on the one easy condition of resuming the family name. She calls herself “Miss Benshaw.” But as a matter of legal necessity she is set down in the deed as “Mrs. Cosway Benshaw.” Her partners only now know that her husband is living, and that you are the Cosway whom she privately married. Will you take a little breathing time? or shall I go on, and get done with it?”

Cosway signed to him to go on.

“She doesn’t in the least care,” Stone proceeded, “for the exposure. ‘I am the head partner,’ she says ‘and the rich one of the firm; they daren’t turn their backs on Me.’ You remember the information I received–in perfect good faith on his part–from the man who keeps the inn? The visit to the London doctor, and the assertion of failing health, were adopted as the best means of plausibly severing the lady’s connection (the great lady now!) with a calling so unworthy of her as the keeping of an inn. Her neighbors at the seaport were all deceived by the stratagem, with two exceptions. They were both men–vagabonds who had pertinaciously tried to delude her into marrying them in the days when she was a widow. They refused to believe in the doctor and the declining health; they had their own suspicion of the motives which had led to the sale of the inn, under very unfavorable circumstances; and they decided on going to London, inspired by the same base hope of making discoveries which might be turned into a means of extorting money.”