"It must have been a great blow to you," I said sympathetically, for I liked the old lady, and realised how deeply she had suffered.
"Yes, but to poor Mary most of all," she said. "They were so happy together; and she was so devoted to him."
This was scarcely the truth; but mothers are often deceived as to their daughters' domestic felicity. A wife is always prone to hide her sorrows from her parents as far as possible. Therefore the old lady had no doubt been the victim of natural deception.
"Yes," I agreed; "it was a tragic and terrible thing. The mystery is quite unsolved."
"To me, the police are worse than useless," she said, in her slow, weak voice; "they don't seem to have exerted themselves in the least after that utterly useless inquest, with its futile verdict. As far as I can gather, not one single point has been cleared up."
"And my poor Mary!" exclaimed old Mrs. Mivart; "she is beside herself with grief. Time seems to increase her melancholy, instead of bringing forgetfulness, as I hoped it would."
"Here. She's been back with me for nearly a month. It was to see her, speak with her, and give me an opinion that I asked you to come down."
"I really don't know what ails her. She talks of her husband incessantly, calls him by name, and sometimes behaves so strangely that I have once or twice been much alarmed."
Her statement startled me. I had no idea that the young widow had taken the old gentleman's death so much to heart. As far as I had been able to judge, it seemed very much as though she had every desire to regain her freedom from a matrimonial bond that galled her. That she was grief-stricken over his death showed that I had entirely misjudged her character.
"Yes, in her own sitting-room--the room we used as a schoolroom when the girls were at home. Sometimes she mopes there all day, only speaking at meals. At others, she takes her dressing-bag and goes away for two or three days--just as the fancy takes her. She absolutely declines to have a maid."
"You mean that she's just a little--well, eccentric," I remarked seriously.
"Yes, Doctor," answered the old lady, in a strange voice quite unusual to her, and fixing her eyes upon me. "To tell the truth I fear her mind is slowly giving way."