“And what?” I encouragingly suggested, seeing that she was under some new and overwhelming emotion. “That cough had a familiar sound, now that I think of it. It was like that of a friend who--But no, no; I will not wrong him by any false surmises. He would stoop to much, but not to that; yet----” The flush on her cheeks had died away, but the two vivid spots which remained showed the depth of her excitement. “Do you think,” she suddenly asked, “that a man out of revenge might plan to frighten me by a false notice of my husband’s death, and that God to punish him, made the notice a prophecy?” “I think a man influenced by the spirit of revenge might do almost anything,” I answered, purposely ignoring the latter part of her question. “But I always considered him a good man. At least I never looked upon him as a wicked one. Every other beggar we meet has a cough; and yet,” she added after a moment’s pause, “if it was not he who gave me this mortal shock, who was it? He is the only person in the world I ever wronged.” “Had you not better tell me his name?” I suggested. “No, I am in too great doubt. I should hate to do him a second injury.” “You cannot injure him if he is innocent. My methods are very safe.” “If I could forget his cough! but it had that peculiar catch in it that I remembered so well in the cough of John Graham. I did not pay any especial heed to it at the time. Old days and old troubles were far enough from my thoughts; but now that my suspicions are raised, that low, choking sound comes back to me in a strangely persistent way, and I seem to see a well-remembered form in the stooping figure of this beggar. Oh, I hope the good God will forgive me if I attribute to this disappointed man a wickedness he never committed.” “Who is John Graham?” I urged, “and what was the nature of the wrong you did him?” She rose, cast me one appealing glance, and perceiving that I meant to have her whole story, turned towards the fire and stood warming her feet before the hearth, with her face turned away from my gaze.