“All I ever saw, but not all I ever heard. Servants and neighbours will talk, you see, sir, and I happened to be told of three or four occasions—at considerable intervals—at which my gentleman made unpleasantness at Myrtle Cottage. He would go there wild with drink—I believe he never went when he was sober—and would kick up a row. If he wanted to get his wife away from the life she was leading he would have gone to work in a different manner; but it’s my opinion he wanted nothing of the kind. He was savage and vindictive in his cups, and he wanted to frighten her and to annoy the man who had tempted her away from him. But he was a poor creature, and after blustering and threatening he would allow himself to be thrust out of doors like a stray cur.” “What kind of a man did he look? A broken-down gentleman?” “Yes, I should say he had been a gentleman once, but he had come down a longish way. He had come down as low as drink and dissipation can bring a man. Altogether I should consider him a dangerous customer.” “A man capable of violence—of crime even?” “Perhaps! A man who wouldn’t have stopped at crime if he hadn’t been a white-livered hound. I tell you, sir, the fellow was afraid of Mr. Dalbrook, although Mr. Dalbrook ought to have been afraid of him. He was a craven to the core of his heart.” “What age did you give him?” “At the time he came to me I should put him down at about six and thirty.” “And that is how many years ago?” “Say four and twenty—I can’t be certain to a year or so. It wasn’t a business transaction, and I haven’t any record of the fact.” “Was he a powerful-looking man?” “He was the remains of a powerful man: he must have been a fine man when he was ten years younger—a handsome man, too—one of those fair-complexioned, blue-eyed, aquiline-nosed men who set off good clothes—the kind of man to do justice to a rig out from a fashionable tailor. He was a wreck when I saw him, but he was the wreck of a handsome man.” “And you take it that he was particularly vindictive?” “He was as vindictive as a cur can be.” “And was his anger strongest against the lady, do you suppose, or against the gentleman?” “Decidedly against the gentleman. He was full of envy and hatred and all uncharitableness towards Mr. Dalbrook. He affected to think contemptuously of his talents and to belittle him in every way, while he was bursting with envy at his growing success. He was jealous and angry as a husband, no doubt; but he was still more jealous and still angrier as a disappointed man against a successful man. He was as venomous as conscious failure can be. And now, sir, that I have spoken so freely about this little domestic drama, which was all past and done with twenty years ago, and in which I only felt interested as a man of the world, now may I ask your name, and how you come to be so keenly interested in so remote an event?” “My name is Dalbrook,” replied Theodore, taking out his card and lying it upon the agent’s desk.