'That he certainly never did. There's some mistake there. His heart was sound as a bell. He had it examined by three doctors before the Aquarium people would let him start upon that sleep of his. They were unanimously of opinion that its condition was perfect. They gave their certificate to that effect--I have it at home now. And the night he woke he was overhauled by at least half-a-dozen. Every man Jack of them said that his heart and lungs were flawless, and that his general condition was altogether beyond their expectation.' 'Miss Desmond says he has suffered from a weak heart his whole life long.' 'A mistake altogether. The truth is, your husband was as hard as nails, and had a constitution like iron. I shouldn't have been mixed up with him in a game like that if I hadn't known that was the case. I remember his saying to the doctors that he'd never had a day's illness in his life, and their replying that they rather fancied it would be a good long time before he did have.' 'And yet his heart collapsed so that he was dead upon the Monday.' 'It does seem odd. I should like to have a look at that medical certificate. I suppose there was one.' 'I can't tell.' 'There must have been. Where's he buried?' 'I don't know.' 'Don't know where your own husband's buried?' 'I didn't ask. All I wanted to do was to get them out of the house, because I knew that his blood was on their hands.' 'Without going so far as that--and if I were you I shouldn't be quite so, what I may call, virulent--I do think that there are circumstances about the case which it would be as well to look into. The position, so far as I understand, is this. Your husband's been away from his family for--how long?' 'They said fifteen years.' Fifteen years; we'll say, for reasons of his own. All that time he never went near them, though he must have known exactly where they were, and all about them; so that his reasons for keeping away must have been tolerably strong. Suddenly a friend--who seems to have taken an uncommon interest in him--sees him, we'll say, engaged in a remarkable line of business. He's so conscious that your husband, if he knows who he is, won't see him, that he bribes me to slip him in as plain John Smith. On the Sunday there's an interview between them, at which we don't know what took place; and on the Monday he returns to his family. By the way, did he return to his family.' 'I don't know.'