you any reason to doubt? To--to base--"

"None whatever. No enquiries which I have made cast doubt upon the
mother's words. But on the other hand I have been unable to confirm
them. I cannot find where my wife died--except that there is no record
of her death in the Cleveland registries. She did not die in Cleveland."

"But you have told me that they were seldom at home. That the mother was
a great traveller."

"Yes. The want of evidence in Cleveland proves nothing."

"Did you feel any doubt at first?"

"Absolutely none. The gloomy house, the empty hall, the white face and
black dress of the woman in the door, the look of horror and anger in
her eyes--yes, and a kind of grim triumph too--all served to drive the
fatal message home. Dead!--There was death in the air of that house,
death in the ghastly face--in the cruel, toneless words!--After my
tedious recovery I made an effort to see Mrs. Weston, although I had
conceived a horror of the woman, but she was gone. The house had been
sold. I tried to trace her without result. She seemed to have vanished
off the face of the earth."

"And how long ago did the whole thing happen?"

"Twelve years. I was twenty-three when I went to claim my bride. I am
thirty-five now."

"Dear me!" said the little man sincerely, "I have always thought you
older than that! But twelve years is--twelve years! And you say this
doubt is a very recent thing?"

"Yes. I have told you the thing is absurd. But I can't help it."

"Have you made any further enquiries?"

"Yes, uselessly. There is a rumour that Mrs. Weston, too, is dead. A
lady who used to know them tells me that she is certain she heard of her
death--in England, she thinks, but upon being questioned was quite at
sea as to where or when or even as to the original source of her
information. She remembers 'hearing it' and that's all. Then I sought
for the aunts, the maiden ladies whom Molly visited in California. They
too are gone, the older died during the time I lay ill in the hospital.
The younger one was not quite bright, I believe, and was taken away to
live with some relatives in the East. It was not Molly's mother who
fetched her. It was a man, a very kind man whom the old lady, my
informant, had never seen before. She said he had a queer name. She
could not remember it, but thought he was a physician. I imagine that
the kind friend was an asylum doctor."

"Very likely. And could your informant tell you nothing of the niec