“I shall find somebody to prove that.”

His thoughts turned to Mr. Chalker, a gentleman whom he judged capable of proving anything he was paid for.

“And suppose they ask me questions?”

“Don’t answer ’em.  You know very little.  The papers were only found the other day.  You are not expected to know anything.”

“Where was the real girl?”

“With her grandfather.”

“Where was the grandfather?”

“What does that matter?” he replied; “I will tell you afterward.”

“When did the real girl die?”

“That, too, I will tell you afterward.”

Lotty leaned her cheek upon her hand, and looked at her husband thoughtfully.

“Let us be plain, Joe.”

“You can never be plain, my dear,” he replied with the smile of a lover, not a husband; “never in your husband’s eyes; not even in tights.”

But she was not to be won by flattery.

“Fine words,” she said, “fine words.  What do they amount to?  Oh, Joe, little I thought when you came along with your beautiful promises, what sort of a man I was going to marry.”

“A very good sort of a man,” he said.  “You’ve got a jolly sailor—­an officer and a gentleman.  Come now, what have you got to say to this?  Can’t you be satisfied with an officer and a gentleman?”

He drew himself up to his full height.  Well, he was a handsome fellow:  there was no denying it.

“Good looks and fine words,” his wife went on.  “Well, and now I’ve got to keep you, and if you could make me sing in a dozen halls every night, you would, and spend the money on yourself—­joyfully you would.”

“We would spend it together, my dear.  Don’t turn rusty, Lotty.”

He was not a bad-tempered man, and this kind of talk did not anger him at all.  So long as his wife worked hard and brought in the coin for him to spend, what mattered for a few words now and then?  Besides, he wanted her assistance.

“What are you driving at?” he went on.  “I show you a bit of my hand, and you begin talking round and round.  Look here, Lotty.  Here’s a splendid chance for us.  I must have a woman’s help.  I would rather have your help than any other woman’s—­yes, than any other woman’s in the world.  I would indeed.  If you won’t help me, why, then, of course, I must go to some other woman.”

His wife gasped and choked.  She knew already, after only five weeks’ experience, how bad a man he was—­how unscrupulous, false, and treacherous, how lazy and selfish.  But, after a fashion, she loved him; after a woman’s fashion, she was madly jealous of him.  Another woman!  And only the other night she had seen him giving brandy-and-soda to one of the music-hall ballet-girls.  Another woman!

“If you do, Joe,” she said; “oh, if you do—­I will kill her and you too!”

He laughed.

“If I do, my dear, you don’t think I shall be such a fool as to tell you who she is.  Do you suppose that no woman has ever fallen in love with me before you?  But then, my pretty, you see I don’t talk about them; and do you suppose—­oh, Lotty, are you such a fool as to suppose that you are the first girl I ever fell in love with?”