You didn't hear because I wasn't telling anybody about it when
it happened, and it never came out."
"Mind telling me about it, Joe?"
He pulled at his perfecto while assembling his facts; and then he made
one of the longest speeches Joe Ellison--"Silent Joe" some of his
friends had called him in the old days--was ever known to utter. But
there was reason for its length; it was an epitome of the most
important period of his life.
"I had a nice little country place over in Jersey for three or four
years. It all happened there. No one knew me for what I was; they took
me for what I pretended to be, a small capitalist whose interests
required his taking occasional trips. Nice neighbors. That's where I
met my wife. She was fine every way. That's why I kept all that part
of my life from my pals; I was afraid they might leak and the truth
would spoil everything. My wife was an orphan, niece of the widow of a
broker who lived out there. She never knew the truth about me. She
died when the baby was born. When the baby was a year and a half my
big smash came, and I went up the river. But I was never connected up
with the man who lived over in Jersey and who suddenly cancelled his
lease and moved away."
The Duchess drew nearer to the heart of her thoughts.
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