第44章 MRS. ZANT AND THE GHOST.(44)

"Do you mean your experience of him before your illness?""Yes. Since my recovery, his engagements with country patients have kept him away from London. I have not seen him since he took these lodgings for me. But he is always considerate. He has written more than once to beg that I will not think him neglectful, and to tell me (what I knew already through my poor husband) that he has no money of his own, and must live by his profession.""In your husband's lifetime, were the two brothers on good terms?""Always. The one complaint I ever heard my husband make of John Zant was that he didn't come to see us often enough, after our marriage. Is there some wickedness in him which we have never suspected? It may be--but _how_ can it be? I have every reason to be grateful to the man against whom I have been supernaturally warned! His conduct to me has been always perfect. I can't tell you what I owe to his influence in quieting my mind, when a dreadful doubt arose about my husband's death.""Do you mean doubt if he died a natural death?""Oh, no! no! He was dying of rapid consumption--but his sudden death took the doctors by surprise. One of them thought that he might have taken an overdose of his sleeping drops, by mistake.