She nodded. Speech seemed to be becoming too painful.
"Drowning," her companion continued, helping himself to brandy,
"is not a pleasant death. Once I was nearly drowned myself. One
struggles for a short time and one thinks--yes, one thinks!" he
added.
He raised his glass to his lips and set it down.
"It is an easy death, though," he went on, "quite an easy death.
By the way, were those clothes that were found of poor Wenham's
identified as the clothes he wore when he left the house?"
She shook her head.
"One could not say for certain," she answered. "I never noticed
how he was dressed. He wore nearly always the same sort of
things, but he had an endless variety."
"And this was seven months ago -seven months."
She assented.
"Poor Wenham," he murmured. "I suppose he is dead. What are you
going to do, Elizabeth?"
"I do not know," she replied. "Soon I must go to the lawyers and
ask for advice. I have very little more money left. I have
written several times to New York to you, to his friends, but I
have had no answer. After all, Jerry, I am his wife. No one
liked my marrying him, but I am his wife. I have a right to a
share of his property if he is dead. If he has deserted me,
surely I shall be allowed something. I do not even know how rich
he was."
The man at her side smiled.
"Much better off than I ever was," he declared. "But,
Elizabeth!"
"Well?"
"There were rumors that, before you left New York, Wenham
converted very large sums of money into letters of credit and
bonds, very large sums indeed.
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