“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.