"Sakes! how should I? Mark and I didn't pull together nohow, so he kicked over the traces and made tracks for the back of beyond." "And you might square it, Lyddy, by saying as 'twasn't you who upset the apple cart." "Well, I should smile to think so," said Mrs. Vrain vigorously. "I was as good as pie to that old man." "You did not get on well together?" said Link sharply. "Got on as well as a cat hitched along with a dog. My stars! there was no living with him. If he hadn't left me, I'd have left him--that's an almighty truth." "So the gist of all this is that Mr. Vrain left you ten months ago, and did not leave his address?" "That's so," said the widow calmly. "I've not seen nor heard of him for most a year, till pop there tumbled across your paragraph in the papers. Then I surmised from the name and the missing finger and the scarred cheek, that I'd dropped right on to Mark. I wouldn't take all this trouble for any one else; no, sir, not me!" "My Lyddy does not care about being a grass-widow, gentlemen." "I don't mind being a grass-widow or a real one, so long as I know how to ticket myself," said the candid Lydia; "but seems to me there's no question that Mark's sent in his checks." "I certainly think that this man who called himself Berwin was your husband," said Denzil, for Mrs. Vrain's eyes rested on him, and she seemed to expect an answer. "Well, then, that means I'm Mr. Vrain's widow?" "I should say so." "And entitled to all his pile?" "That depends on the will," said Lucian dryly, for the light tone of the pretty woman jarred upon his ear. "Oh, that's all right," replied Mrs. Vrain, putting a gold-topped smelling bottle to her nose. "I saw the will made, and know exactly how I come out. The old man's daughter by his first wife gets the manor and the rents, and I take the assurance money!" "Was Mr. Berwin--I beg pardon, Vrain--was he married twice?" "I should think so!" said Lydia. "He was a widower with a grown-up daughter when I took him to church. Well, can I get this assurance money?" "I suppose so," said Link, "provided you can prove your husband's death." "Sakes alive!" cried Mrs. Vrain briskly. "Wasn't he murdered?" "The man called Berwin was murdered." "Well, sir," said the rosy-cheeked Clyne, with more sharpness than might have been expected from his peaceful aspect, "and ain't Berwin Vrain?" "It would seem so," replied Link coolly. "All your evidence goes to prove it, yet the assurance company may not be satisfied with the proof. I expect the grave will have to be opened, and the remains identified." "Ugh!" said Mrs. Vrain with a shrug, "how disgusting! I mean," she added, colouring as she saw that Lucian was rather shocked by her flippancy, "that sorry as I am for the old man, he wasn't a good husband to me, and corpses a week old ain't pleasant things to look on."