"

"What have you actually got with your wife at the present moment?"

"Nothing but the interest of her twenty thousand pounds--barely enough
to pay our daily expenses."

"What do you expect from your wife?"

"Three thousand a year when her uncle dies."

"A fine fortune, Percival. What sort of a man is this uncle? Old?"

"No--neither old nor young."

"A good-tempered, freely-living man? Married? No--I think my wife
told me, not married."

"Of course not. If he was married, and had a son, Lady Glyde would not
be next heir to the property. I'll tell you what he is. He's a
maudlin, twaddling, selfish fool, and bores everybody who comes near
him about the state of his health."

"Men of that sort, Percival, live long, and marry malevolently when you
least expect it. I don't give you much, my friend, for your chance of
the three thousand a year. Is there nothing more that comes to you
from your wife?"

"Nothing."

"Absolutely nothing?"

"Absolutely nothing--except in case of her death."

"Aha! in the case of her death."

There was another pause. The Count moved from the verandah to the
gravel walk outside. I knew that he had moved by his voice. "The rain
has come at last," I heard him say. It had come. The state of my
cloak showed that it had been falling thickly for some little time.

The Count went back under the verandah--I heard the chair creak beneath
his weight as he sat down in it again.

"Well, Percival," he said, "and in the case of Lady Glyde's death, what
do you get then?"

"If she leaves no children----"

"Which she is likely to do?"

"Which she is not in the least likely to do----"

"Yes?"

"Why, then I get her twenty thousand pounds."

"Paid down?"

"Paid down."

They were silent once more. As their voices ceased Madame Fosco's
shadow darkened the blind again. Instead of passing this time, it
remained, for a moment, quite still. I saw her fingers steal round the
corner of the blind, and draw it on one side. The dim white outline of
her face, looking out straight over me, appeared behind the window. I
kept still, shrouded from head to foot in my black cloak. The rain,
which was fast wetting me, dripped over the glass, blurred it, and
prevented her from seeing anything. "More rain!" I heard her say to
herself. She dropped the blind, and I breathed again freely.

The talk went on below me, the Count resuming it this time.

"Percival! do you care about your wife