Читать книгу Joe Leslie's Wife; or, a Skeleton in the Closet онлайн

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“It looks like a woman’s writing.”

“Yes, all writing does after a man has fallen into the habit of looking for letters day by day—letters that are delayed—Come, you married men are very suspicious.”

With that he dexterously whipped the subject around and began talking about something of decided interest, so that Joe, completely hoodwinked, speedily forgot about the singular little coincidence that had brought this address under the eyes of the owner of the house.

He was not quite done with Joe yet.

“You must own a good deal of property in and around the city, Joe?”

“I do—property left to me by my mother.”

“You have no need to work.”

“Well, perhaps not. Some day when I take the notion I mean to figure up my income from this property, and if it’s a good sum, by Jove! I’ll fling business to the winds and take my little wife to Europe for a year—that is, if—”

Darrell did not let him finish.

“Why, man alive, you talk as though you didn’t hardly know what property you owned, yourself.”

“Neither do I—it’s all come to me since I married, and I’ve been so much taken up with my wife that I haven’t found time to attend to it as I should.”