Jermyn to a mere shabby wisp of a man, and made the talkative stranger in tweeds on the hearthrug look absurdly boyish. The latter must have been a few years over thirty, and was certainly not the sort of individual that gets abashed at the sound of his own voice, because gathering me in, as it were, by a friendly glance, he kept it going without a check. </p> <p> &ldquo;I was glad of it,&rdquo; he repeated, emphatically. &ldquo;You may be surprised at it, but then you haven&rsquo;t gone through the experience I&rsquo;ve had of her. I can tell you, it was something to remember. Of course, I got off scot free myself&mdash;as you can see. She did her best to break up my pluck for me tho&rsquo;. She jolly near drove as fine a fellow as ever lived into a madhouse. What do you say to that&mdash;eh?&rdquo; </p> <p> Not an eyelid twitched in Mr. Stonor&rsquo;s enormous face. Monumental! The speaker looked straight into my eyes. </p> <p> &ldquo;It used to make me sick to think of her going about the world murdering people.&rdquo; </p> <p> Jermyn approached the handkerchief a little nearer to the grate and groaned. It was simply a habit he had. </p> <p> &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen her once,&rdquo; he declared, with mournful indifference. &ldquo;She had a house&mdash;&rdquo; </p> <p> The stranger in tweeds turned to stare down at him, surprised. </p> <p> &ldquo;She had three houses,&rdquo; he corrected, authoritatively. But Jermyn was not to be contradicted. </p> <p> &ldquo;She had a house, I say,&rdquo; he repeated, with dismal obstinacy. &ldquo;A great, big, ugly, white thing. You could see it from miles away&mdash;sticking up.&rdquo; </p> <p> &ldquo;So you could,&rdquo; assented the other readily. &ldquo;It was old Colchester&rsquo;s notion, though he was always threatening to give her up. He couldn&rsquo;t stand her racket any more, he declared; it was too much of a good thing for him; he would wash his hands of her, if he never got hold of another&mdash;and so on. I daresay he would have chucked her, only&mdash;it may surprise you&mdash;his missus wouldn&rsquo;t hear of it. Funny, eh? But with women, you never know how they will take a thing, and Mrs. Colchester, with her moustaches and big eyebrows, set up for being as strong-minded as they make them. She used to walk about in a brown silk dress, with a great gold cable flopping about her bosom. You should have heard her snapping out: &lsquo;Rubbish!&rsquo; or &lsquo;Stuff and nonsense!&rsquo; I daresay she knew when she was well off. They had no children, and had never set up a home anywhere. When in England she just made shift to hang out anyhow in some cheap hotel or boarding-house. I