“Three thousand a year when her uncle dies.”

“A fine fortune, Percival.  What sort of a man is this uncle?  Old?”

“No—­neither old nor young.”

“A good-tempered, freely-living man?  Married?  No—­I think my wife told me, not married.”

“Of course not.  If he was married, and had a son, Lady Glyde would not be next heir to the property.  I’ll tell you what he is.  He’s a maudlin, twaddling, selfish fool, and bores everybody who comes near him about the state of his health.”

“Men of that sort, Percival, live long, and marry malevolently when you least expect it.  I don’t give you much, my friend, for your chance of the three thousand a year.  Is there nothing more that comes to you from your wife?”

“Nothing.”

“Absolutely nothing?”

“Absolutely nothing—­except in case of her death.”

“Aha! in the case of her death.”

There was another pause.  The Count moved from the verandah to the gravel walk outside.  I knew that he had moved by his voice.  “The rain has come at last,” I heard him say.  It had come.  The state of my cloak showed that it had been falling thickly for some little time.

The Count went back under the verandah—­I heard the chair creak beneath his weight as he sat down in it again.

“Well, Percival,” he said, “and in the case of Lady Glyde’s death, what do you get then?”

“If she leaves no children——­”

“Which she is likely to do?”

“Which she is not in the least likely to do——­”

“Yes?”

“Why, then I get her twenty thousand pounds.”

“Paid down?”

“Paid down.”

They were silent once more.  As their voices ceased Madame Fosco’s shadow darkened the blind again.  Instead of passing this time, it remained, for a moment, quite still.  I saw her fingers steal round the corner of the blind, and draw it on one side.  The dim white outline of her face, looking out straight over me, appeared behind the window.  I kept still, shrouded from head to foot in my black cloak.  The rain, which was fast wetting me, dripped over the glass, blurred it, and prevented her from seeing anything.  “More rain!” I heard her say to herself.  She dropped the blind, and I breathed again freely.

The talk went on below me, the Count resuming it this time.

“Percival! do you care about your wife?”

“Fosco! that’s rather a downright question.”

“I am a downright man, and I repeat it.”

“Why the devil do you look at me in that way?”

“You won’t answer me?  Well, then, let us say your wife dies before the summer is out——­”

“Drop it, Fosco!”

“Let us say your wife dies——­”

“Drop it, I tell you!”

“In that case, you would gain twenty thousand pounds, and you would lose——­”

“I should lose the chance of three thousand a year.”