“The professor,” her listener murmured.

She nodded.

“It was a little better then for me,” she went on, “except that poor Wenham seemed to take such a dislike to my father.  However, he hated every one in turn, even the doctors, who always did their best for him.  One day, I admit, I lost my temper.  We quarreled; I could not help it—­life was becoming insupportable.  He rushed out of the house—­it was about three o’clock in the afternoon.  I have never seen him since.”

The man was looking at her, looking at her closely although he was blinking all the time.

“What do you think became of him?” he asked.  “What do people think? "

She shook her head.

“The only thing he cared to do was swim,” she said.  “His clothes and hat were found down in the little cove near where we had a tent.”

“You think, then, that he was drowned?” the man asked.

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.”  She shook her head.  “He had a letter of credit for about a thousand pounds, I think,” she said.  “There is very little left of the money he had with him.”

“And you find living here expensive, I dare say?”

“Very expensive indeed,” she agreed, with a sigh.  “I have been looking forward to seeing you, Jerry.  I thought, perhaps, for the sake of old times you might advise me.”