I instantly took him up. “There was plenty of time for you to have seen her? How so,” I inquired, “when you didn’t leave my house till late? I don’t remember the very moment--I was preoccupied. But you know that though you said you had lots to do you sat for some time after dinner. She, on her side, was all the evening at the ‘Gentlewomen.’ I’ve just come from there--I’ve ascertained. She had tea there; she remained a long, long time.”
“What was she doing all the long, long time?” I saw that he was eager to challenge at every step my account of the matter; and the more he showed this the more I found myself disposed to insist on that account, to prefer, with apparent perversity, an explanation which only deepened the marvel and the mystery, but which, of the two prodigies it had to choose from, my reviving jealousy found easiest to accept. He stood there pleading with a candour that now seems to me beautiful for the privilege of having in spite of supreme defeat known the living woman; while I, with a passion I wonder at to-day, though it still smoulders in a manner in its ashes, could only reply that, through a strange gift shared by her with his mother and on her own side likewise hereditary, the miracle of his youth had been renewed for him, the miracle of hers for her. She had been to him--yes, and by an impulse as charming as he liked; but oh! she had not been in the body. It was a simple question of evidence. I had had, I assured him, a definite statement of what she had done--most of the time--at the little club. The place was almost empty, but the servants had noticed her. She had sat motionless in a deep chair by the drawing-room fire; she had leaned back her head, she had closed her eyes, she had seemed softly to sleep.
“There,” I was obliged to answer, “the servants fail me a little. The portress in particular is unfortunately a fool, though even she too is supposed to be a Gentlewoman. She was evidently at that period of the evening, without a substitute and, against regulations, absent for some little time from the cage in which it’s her business to watch the comings and goings. She’s muddled, she palpably prevaricates; so I can’t positively, from her observation, give you an hour. But it was remarked toward half-past ten that our poor friend was no longer in the club.”