I could see that Urcombe was on the point of saying something further, but checked himself.
“Ah! very likely that was it,” he said.
But something had disturbed our usual peaceful sociability that night, and something had damped Mrs. Amworth’s usual high spirits. She had no gusto for her piquet, and left after a couple of games. Urcombe had been silent too, indeed he hardly spoke again till she departed.
“That was unfortunate,” he said, “for the outbreak of — of a very mysterious disease, let us call it, took place at Peshawar, where she and her husband were. And —”
“Well?” I asked.
“He was one of the victims of it,” said he. “Naturally I had quite forgotten that when I spoke.”
The summer was unreasonably hot and rainless, and Maxley suffered much from drought, and also from a plague
