'Married? My dear Edith, is that the shape your fancy takes? I know no more whether he was married than you do. Although I have a private conviction--to which I intend to adhere till the contrary is proved--that he wasn't.' My manner plainly showed her that her shot had failed to hit the mark. She let fly another arrow; this time with a better aim. 'Douglas, where did you see him first?' 'Some day I may tell you. I don't propose to now.' 'Was he ill?' 'Not that I'm aware of.' 'It wasn't in a hospital?' 'A hospital! Edith, what is it you are driving at?' 'Nor in any place of the kind?' 'Are you suggesting that I dragged him from a sick bed to die for our benefit? Because, if so, let me assure you that when I first saw him I had no notion that anything ailed him, or that he was any nearer death than I am.' 'Well, Douglas, I won't worry you now, because I know that you are already worried about something, the burden of which I hope that one day you'll share with me.' So she went, leaving me in a condition of mental unrest to which I had never supposed I could have fallen a prey. I could not shake off that ridiculous feeling that I had for company the silent figure on the bed; the dead man who was not dead. The interview with Edith invested him with a new significance. Already she suspected that there was more in the matter than met the eye. Was I so poor an actor? Had I so wholly failed to profit by the great example which had been set me? If it was Edith now, when would it be Violet and Reggie? If either of them gained the faintest inkling of the actual state of affairs, what would become of my house of cards, and of me? How infinitely worse would my latter state be than my first! I had never, so far as I knew, done a dishonourable thing till then. Now, on a sudden, here I was, tilting against the laws both of God and man. If I had a fall, there would be an end of me.