"_Married ?_" Mr.Nugent nodded.

His face was perfectly grave, but the joke was beginning to prey upon his vitals in a manner which brooked no delay.
"I thought everybody knew it," he said.

"We have never disguised the fact.

Her husband died twenty years ago last----" "Twenty" said his suddenly enlightened listener.

"Who ?--What ?" Mr.Nugent, incapable of reply, put his head on the table and beat the air frantically with his hand, while gasping sobs rent his tortured frame.
"Dear--aunt," he choked, "how pleas--pleased she'd be if--she knew.
Don't look like that, Hardy.