extruded from some such chamber for non-payment of a gambling debt;
that he had made one in a violent fracas which had subsequently
taken place in the French streets; and that his body had afterwards
been identified in the Morgue.

Such was the story which bit by bit reached Mr. Wainwright's ears,
and at last induced him to go over to Paris, so that the absolute
and proof-sustained truth of the matter might be ascertained, and
made known to all men. The poor man's search was difficult and
weary. The ways of Paris were not then so easy to an Englishman as
they have since become, and Mr. Wainwright could not himself speak a
word of French. But nevertheless he did learn much; so much as to
justify him, as he thought, in instructing his daughter to wear a
widow's cap. That Talbot had been kicked out of a gambling-house in
the Rue Richelieu was absolutely proved. An acquaintance who had
been with him in Dorsetshire on his first arrival there had seen
this done; and bore testimony of the fact that the man so treated
was the man who had taken the hunting-lodge in England. This same
acquaintance had been one of the party adverse to Talbot in the row
which had followed, and he could not, therefore, be got to say that
he had seen him dead. But other evidence had gone to show that the
man who had been so extruded was the man who had perished; and the
French lawyer whom Mr. Wainwright had employed, at last assured the
poor broken-hearted clergyman that he might look upon it as proved.
"Had he not been dead," said the lawyer, "the inquiry which has been
made would have traced him out alive." And thus his daughter was
instructed to put on her widow's cap, and her mother again called
her Mrs. Talbot.

Indeed, at that time they hardly knew what to call her, or how to