For many seconds Bernard gazed upon the pictured face. Finally he spoke. "Your wife must be a very beautiful woman." "Yes," said Everard quietly. He spoke gravely. His brother's eyes travelled upwards swiftly. "That was not what you married her for, eh?" Everard stooped and took the portrait from him. "Well, no--not entirely," he said. Bernard smiled a little. "You haven't told me much about her, you know. How long have you been acquainted?" "Nearly two years. I think I mentioned in my letter that she was the widow of a comrade?" "Yes, I remember. But you were rather vague about it. What happened to him? Didn't he meet with a violent death?" There was a pause. Everard was still standing with his eyes fixed upon the photograph. His face was stern. "What was it?" questioned Bernard. "Didn't he fall over a precipice?" "Yes," abruptly the younger man made answer. "It happened in Kashmir when they were on their honeymoon." "Ah! Poor girl! She must have suffered. What was his name? Was he a pal of yours?" "More or less." Everard's voice rang hard. "His name was Dacre." "Oh, to be sure. The man I wrote to you about just before poor Madelina Belleville died in prison. Her husband's name was Dacre. He was in the Army too, and she thought he was in India. But it's not a very uncommon name." Bernard spoke thoughtfully. "You said he was no relation." "I said to the best of my belief he was not." Everard turned suddenly and sat down. "People are not keen, you know, on owning to shady relations. He was no exception to the rule. But if the woman died, it's of no great consequence now to any one. When did she die?" Bernard took a long pull at his pipe. His brows were slightly drawn. "She died suddenly, poor soul. Did I never tell you? It must have been immediately after I wrote that letter to you. It was. I remember now. It was the very day after.... She died on the twenty-first of March--the first day of spring. Poor girl! She had so longed for the spring. Her time would have been up in May." Something in the silence that followed his words made him turn his head to look at his brother. Everard was sitting perfectly rigid in his chair staring at the ground between his feet as if he saw a serpent writhing there. But before another word could be spoken, he got up abruptly, with a gesture as of shaking off the loathsome thing, and went to the window. He flung it wide, and stood in the opening, breathing hard as a man half-suffocated. "Anything wrong, old chap?" questioned Bernard. He answered him without turning. "No; it's only my infernal head. I think I'll turn in directly. It's a fiendish night." The rain was falling in torrents, and a long roll of thunder sounded from afar. The clatter of the great drops on the roof of the verandah filled the room, making all further conversation impossible. It was like a tattoo of devils. "A damn' pleasant country this!" murmured the man in the chair.