"—make fools of themselves?"

She looked up at him, and there came a quivering smile over her disfigured face. "Yes, if you really wish it, Mark. I'll do just as you like."

"D'you really mean that?" he asked.

And she said firmly: "Yes, Mark—I really do mean it." And he felt her yielding—yielding in spirit as well as in body—in body as well as in spirit.

"I suppose you couldn't come back with me to London, now?" he asked a little shyly. "We could get the woman at the post office down there to send up a letter to Bubbles, explaining that you had to go away unexpectedly, and telling her to follow you to town to-day."

It was rather a wild proposal, and he was not surprised when he saw her shake her head. "I can't do that," she said. "But oh, Mark, I wish I could! Bubbles is in bed. There was an accident—it's too long to tell you about it now. But, of course, I'll manage to get her away to-day."

And then the oppressive horror of it all suddenly came back to her. "When did you say they were going to arrest Lionel?"

She uttered the words slowly, and with difficulty.

"They're going to arrest him to-morrow, Friday, in the early afternoon," he said in a low voice. "By God's mercy," he spoke simply, reverently, "I got your letter in time, Blanche."

He looked at her anxiously. "I'm afraid even now you will have some difficult hours to live through," and, as he saw her face change, "I trust absolutely to your discretion," he said hesitatingly.

"Of course," she gave the assurance hurriedly. "Of course you can do that, Mark."

Without looking at her, he went on:

"As a matter of fact, the house has been watched for some days. If he tries to get away he will destroy the—the sporting chance I mentioned just now."

"I must be going back," she said, getting up. "Several of the party were, in any case, leaving this afternoon, and I must manage to get everybody else away as well."

Her mind was in a whirl of conflicting feelings and emotions. And then, all at once, she was moved, taken away from the dreadful problem of the moment, by what she saw in Mark Gifford's face. It was filled with a kind of sober gladness. "Mark," she exclaimed, "what a selfish brute I've always been to you—never giving—always taking! I'll try to be different now."

She held out her hand; he took it and held it closely. "When shall I see you again?" he asked. "May I come and meet you and Bubbles at Liverpool Street to-morrow?"

"Yes—do. That will be a great comfort!" And then, acting as she very seldom did, on impulse, Blanche rather shamefacedly held up her face to his....



CHAPTER XXII

Again and again, as Blanche Farrow walked slowly back to Wyndfell Hall, she went over the meagre details of the strange story she had just been told. Again and again she tried to fill in the bare outlines of the tale.

Lionel Varick a murderer? Her mind, her heart, refused to accept the possibility.

Suddenly there came back to her a recollection of the curious, now many years old, circumstances which had attended her knowledge of Varick's first marriage.

Someone, she could not now remember who, had taken her to one of the cheap foreign restaurants in Soho, which were not then so much frequented by English people as they are now. She had been surprised, and rather amused, to see Lionel Varick at a neighbouring table, apparently entertaining a middle-aged, rather prim-looking lady, whom he had introduced to her, Blanche, rather unwillingly, as "my friend, Miss Weatherfield."

Then had come the strange part of the story!

When on her way to stay with some friends in Sussex a few days later, she found herself in the same railway carriage as Miss Weatherfield; and, during the course of some desultory talk, the latter had mentioned that she was daughter to the Chichester doctor who had attended Lionel Varick's wife in her last illness.

Lionel Varick's wife? For a moment Blanche had thought that there must be some mistake, or that her ears had betrayed her. But she very soon realized that there was no mistake, and that she had heard aright.

Successfully concealing her ignorance of the fact that their mutual friend was a widower, she had ventured a few discreet questions, to which had come willing answers. These made it clear why Varick had chosen to remain silent concerning what had evidently been a sordid and melancholy episode of his past life.

Miss Weatherfield told her pleasant new acquaintance that the Varicks, when they had first come to Chichester, had been very poor, the wife of an obviously lower class than the husband. But that Varick, being the gentleman he was, had not minded what he did to earn an honest living, and that through Dr. Weatherfield he had obtained for a while employment with a chemist, his work being that of taking round the medicines, as he was not of course qualified to make up prescriptions.

While Miss Weatherfield had babbled on, Blanche had been able to piece together what had evidently been a singularly painful story. Mrs. Varick had been a violent, disagreeable woman, and the kindly spinster had felt deeply sorry for the husband, himself little more than a boy. But she admitted that her father, while attending Mrs. Varick, had acquired a prejudice against the husband of his patient, and she added, smilingly, that it was without her father's knowledge or consent that she had given the young man, after the death of his wife, a valuable business introduction.

Miss Weatherfield evidently flattered herself that this introduction had been a turning-point in Varick's life, and that what appeared to her his present prosperity was owing to what she had done. In any case, he had shown his gratitude by keeping in touch with her, and on the rare occasions when she came to London, they generally met.

Blanche Farrow, even in those early days, was too much a woman of the world to feel as surprised as some people would have been. All the same, she had felt disconcerted and a little pained, that the man who was fond of telling her that she was his only real friend in the world had concealed from her so important a fact as that of his marriage.

After some hesitation she had made up her mind to tell him of her new-found knowledge, and at once he had filled in and coloured the sketchy outlines of the picture drawn by the rather foolish if kindly natured Miss Weatherfield. Yes, it was true that he had been a fool, though a quixotic fool—so Blanche had felt on hearing his version of the story. At the time of the marriage Varick had been nineteen, his wife five years older. The two had soon parted, but they had made up their differences after a separation which lasted four years. Varick's fortunes had then been at their lowest ebb, and the two had drifted to Chichester, where Mrs. Varick had humble, respectable relations. After a while the woman had fallen ill, and finally died. Blanche had seen how it had pained and disturbed Varick to rake out the embers of the past, and neither had ever referred to the sad story again.

* * * * *

And now, from considering the past, Blanche Farrow turned shrinkingly to the present.

In common with the rest of the world, she had at times followed the course of some great murder trial; and she had been interested, as most intelligent people are occasionally interested, in the ins and outs of more than one so-called "poisoning mystery."

But such happenings had seemed utterly remote from herself; and to her imagination the word "murderer" had connoted an eccentric, cunning, mentally misshapen monster, lacking all resemblance to the vast bulk of human kind. She tried to realize that, if Mark Gifford's tale were true, a man with whom she herself had long been in close sympathy, and whose peculiar character she had rather prided herself on understanding, had been—nay, was—such a monster.

Blanche felt a touch of shuddering repulsion from herself, as well as from Varick, as she now remembered how sincerely she had rejoiced when, reading between the lines of his letter, she had guessed that he was marrying an unattractive woman for her money. It was now a comfort to feel that, even so, she had certainly felt a sensation of disgust when it had come to her knowledge that Varick had assumed, with regard to that same unattractive woman, an extravagant devotion she felt convinced he did not—could not—feel. It had shocked her, made her feel uncomfortable, to hear Helen Brabazon's artless allusions to the tenderness and devotion he had lavished on "poor Milly."

Helen Brabazon? A sensation of pain, almost of shame, swept over Blanche Farrow. Were Helen to appear as witness in a cause celebre the girl's life would henceforth be shadowed and smirched by an awful memory. And then there rose before her mind another dread possibility. Was it not possible—nay, probable—that she, Blanche Farrow, would be sucked into the vortex?

She remembered a case in which the prisoner had been charged with the murder of a relation through whose death he had received considerable benefit, and how four or five men and women of repute had been called to testify to his high character, and to the kindness of his heart. But their evidence had availed him nothing, for he had been hanged.

Blanche quickened her footsteps as, in imagination, she saw herself in the witness-box speaking on behalf of Lionel Varick.

She argued with herself that, after all, it was just possible that he might be innocent! If so, she would fight for him to the death, and that, however much it distressed and angered Mark Gifford that she should do so.

Absorbed in the dread and terrible thing he had come to tell her, she had not given him, the man who loved her, and whose wife she was to be, one thought since their solemn, rather shamefaced, embrace. Yet now the knowledge that, however, much he disapproved, Mark would stand by her, gave her a wonderful feeling of security, of having left the open sea of life for a safe harbour—and that in spite of the terrible hours, perhaps the terrible weeks and months, which now lay before her.

* * * * *

Turning the sharp angle which led to the gate giving admittance to the gardens of Wyndfell Hall, she suddenly met Helen Brabazon face to face, and for one wild moment Blanche thought that Helen knew. The girl's usually placid, comely face was disfigured. It was plain that she had been crying bitterly.

"I'm going to the village," she exclaimed; "I've got to go home to-day, and I must telegraph to my uncle."

"I hope you haven't had bad news?" said Blanche mechanically.

She was telling herself that it was quite, quite impossible that Helen knew anything—but as Helen, who had begun crying again, shook her head, Blanche asked: "Does Lionel know that you want to leave to-day?"

"Yes; I have told Mr. Varick," and then all at once she exclaimed: "Oh, Miss Farrow, I feel so utterly miserable! Mr. Varick has just asked me to be his wife, and it has made me feel as if I had been so treacherous to Milly. Yet I don't think I did anything to make him like me? Do you think I did?"

She looked appealingly at Blanche.

It was plain that what had happened had given her an extraordinary shock. "I am sure, now," she went on falteringly, "that Milly—poor, poor Milly—haunts this house. I have felt, again and again, as if she were hovering about me. I believe that what I saw in the hall, on that awful afternoon, was really her. Yet Mr. Varick says that Milly would be very pleased if he and I were to marry each other. Surely he is mistaken?"

"Yes," said Blanche slowly, "I think he is."

"I feel so miserable," went on the girl, still speaking with a touch of excitement which in her was so very unusual. "What happened this morning has spoiled what I thought was such a beautiful friendship! And then I feel frightened—horribly frightened"—she went on in a low voice.

"What is it that frightens you, Helen?" asked Blanche.

These confidences seemed at once so futile, and yet also so sinister, knowing what she now knew.

"I'm afraid that Mr. Varick will 'will' me into thinking I care for him," the girl confessed in a low voice. "He says that he will never give up hope, and that, although he knows he isn't worthy of me, he thinks that in time I shall care for him. But I don't want to care for him, Miss Farrow—I'm sure that Milly is jealous of me; yet at Redsands, when she was dying, it made her happy that we were friends."

"I don't think you need be afraid that Lionel will ever ask you to marry him again," said Blanche firmly. "And, Helen? Let me give you a word of advice. Never, never, tell anyone of what happened to you this morning."

The girl blushed painfully. "I know I ought not to have told you," she whispered, "but I felt so wretched." She hesitated, and then added: "Ever since it happened I have been remembering that first evening, when my dear father warned me to leave this house. Oh, how I wish I had done what he told me to do!"

"I think you are wrong there," said Blanche. "I think a day will come, Helen, and in spite of anything that has happened, or that may happen, when you will be very glad that you stayed on at Wyndfell Hall."

"Do you?" she said wistfully and then she went on, with a note of diffidence and shyness which touched the older woman: "You and Bubbles have both been so kind to me—would you rather that I stayed on with you? I will if you like."

"As a matter of fact, Bubbles and I are going away to-day, after all," said Blanche, "so let me send one of the men down with your telegram."

"I would rather take it myself—really!" and a moment later she disappeared round the sharp turning which led on to the open road.

* * * * *

Blanche walked on, her eyes on the ground, until there fell on her ears the sound of quick footsteps. She looked up, to see Varick's tall figure hurrying towards her.

They met by the moat bridge, and as he came up to her he saw her pull forward the veil which, neatly arranged round the rim of her small felt hat, was not really meant to cover her face.

"Let's walk down here for a moment," he said abruptly. "I want to ask you a question, Blanche."

They stepped off the carriage road on to the grass, and, walking on a few paces, stood together at the exact spot from which Varick, on Christmas Eve, had looked at the house before him with such exultant eyes.

Three weeks ago Wyndfell Hall had appeared kindly and welcoming, as well as mysteriously beautiful, with its old diamond-paned windows all aglow. Now, in the wintry daylight, the ancient dwelling house still looked mysteriously beautiful; but there was something cold, menacing, forlorn in its appearance. The windows looked like blind eyes....

He turned on her suddenly, and held out the telegram she had received that morning.

"One of the servants picked this up on the breakfast table and brought it to me. What the devil does it mean? If Mark Gifford wanted to see you why couldn't he come here?"

Blanche looked at him dumbly. Had her life depended on her speaking she could not have spoken just then.

He went on: "Have you seen Gifford? Did he say anything about me?"

He uttered the words with a kind of breathless haste. She had the painful feeling that he wanted to put her in the wrong, to quarrel with her. Even as he spoke he was tearing the telegram into small pieces, and casting them down on to the neat, well-kept grass path.

"I suspect I know the business he came about—" He was speaking quietly, collectedly, now, and she felt that he was making a great effort to speak calmly and confidently.

"I don't think, Lionel, that you can know," she answered at last, in an almost inaudible voice.

"Well, let me tell you what it is that I suspect," he said.

There was a long pause. He was looking at her warily, wondering, evidently, as to how far he dared confide in her. And that look of his made her feel sick and faint.

"I suspect," he said at last, "that Gifford came to tell you a cock-and-bull story concocted by my wife's companion, a woman called Julia Pigchalke."

"Yes, Lionel, you have guessed right."

It was an unutterable relief that he thus made the way easy for her; a relief—but she now knew that what Gifford had told her was true.

"He wants me to get everyone away from here to-day," she went on, in a tone so low that he could scarcely hear her.

"Away from here? To-day?" he repeated, startled.

"Yes, away before to-morrow midday." She moistened her dry lips with her tongue.

"I am the victim of a foul conspiracy!" he exclaimed. "Panton warned me that I should have trouble with that woman." He waited a moment, then: "Did Gifford tell you that they have sent for Panton?" he asked suddenly. So that, she told herself, was what had really put him on the track. She nodded, and he added grimly: "They won't get much out of him."

Then he was going to fight it—fight it to the last?

"You will stand my friend, Blanche," he asked, and slowly she bent her head.

"Of course you know what this woman Pigchalke wishes to prove?"

He was now looking keenly, breathlessly, into her pale, set face. "Come," he said, "come, Blanche—don't be so upset! Tell me exactly what it was that Gifford told you."

But she shook her head. "I—I can't," she murmured.

"Then I will tell you what perhaps he felt ashamed to say to any friend of mine—that is that Julia Pigchalke suspects me of having done my poor Milly to death! She went and saw Panton; she did more, she actually advertised for particulars of my past life. Did he know that?"

He waited, for what seemed a very long time to Blanche, and then in a voice which, try as he might, was yet full of suppressed anxiety, he added: "She had got hold somehow of the fact that I once lived at Chichester."

Blanche looked down, and she counted over, twice, the thirty little bits of the torn telegram before she answered, in a low, muffled voice: "It's what happened at Chichester, Lionel, that made them listen to her."

There was a long moment of tense, of terrible, silence between them.

At last Varick broke the silence, and, speaking in an easy, if excited, conversational tone, he exclaimed: "That's a bit of bad luck for me! I have an enemy there—an old fool of a doctor—father of that woman you met me with years ago."

He walked on a few steps, leaving her standing, and then came back to her.

More seriously he asked the fateful question: "I take it I am to be arrested to-morrow?"

He saw by her face that he had guessed truly, and as if speaking to himself, he said musingly: "That means I have twenty-four hours."

She forced herself to say: "They think you have a good sporting chance if you stay where you are."

"It never occurred to me to go away!" he said angrily. "I want you always to remember, Blanche, that I told you, here, and now, that, even if appearances may come to seem damnably against me, I am an innocent man."

She answered: "I will always remember that, and always say so."

He said abruptly: "I want you to do me a kindness."

She asked uneasily: "What is it, Lionel?"

"I want you to get Gifford to prevent the meeting which has been arranged for to-morrow morning between Panton and the Home Office expert called Spiller."

He waited a moment, then went on: "It was the summons to Panton which put me on the track of—of this conspiracy." And Blanche felt that this time Varick was speaking the truth.

She said, deprecatingly: "Mark would do a great deal to please me, but I'm afraid he won't do that."

"I think he may," he answered, in a singular tone, "you may have a greater power of persuasion than you know."

She made no answer to that, knowing well that Mark would never interfere with regard to such a matter as this.

"Can you suggest any reason I can give, why we should be all going away to-day?" she asked falteringly.

Without a moment's hesitation he answered: "You can say there has been trouble among the servants, and that I should feel much obliged if I could have the house cleared of all my visitors by to-night."

Then Blanche Farrow came to a sudden determination. "I will get them all away to-day, Lionel, but I, myself, will stay till to-morrow morning."

For the first time during this strange, to her this unutterably painful conversation, Varick showed a touch of real, genuine feeling. It was as if a mask had fallen from his face.

He gripped her hand. "You're a brick!" he exclaimed. "I ought to tell you to go away, too, but I won't be proud, Blanche. I'll accept your kindness."



CHAPTER XXIII

There are hours in almost every life of which the memory is put away, hidden, as far as may be, in an unfathomable pit. Blanche Farrow never recalled to herself, and never discussed with any living being, the hours which followed her talk with Lionel Varick.

Of the five people to whom she told the untrue tale so quickly and so cleverly imagined by their host, only one suspected that she was not telling the truth. That one—oddly enough—was Sir Lyon Dilsford. He guessed that something was wrong, and in one sense he got near to the truth—but it was such a very small bit of the truth!

Sir Lyon suspected that Varick had made an offer to Helen Brabazon, and that she had refused him. But he was never to know if his suspicion had been correct, for he was one of those rare human being who are never tempted to ask indiscreet or unnecessary questions from even their nearest and dearest.

In answer to Miss Farrow's apologies and explanations, everyone, of course, expressed himself or herself as very willing to fall in with the suggestion that they should all travel up to town together that day. It also seemed quite natural to them all, even to Bubbles, that Blanche should stay behind for the one night.

She was not the sort of woman to leave a task half done. She had engaged the servants, and she would remain to settle up with them. The average man—and most of them thought Varick an average man—is helpless in dealing with so complicated a domestic problem as a number of job servants.

As the hours of the early afternoon went by, Blanche more and more marvelled at Varick's extraordinary powers of self-command. Excepting that he was, perhaps, a little more restless than usual, he was at his best as the courteous, kindly host, now parting with regret from a number of well-liked guests.

He even succeeded in putting Helen Brabazon once more at her ease, for, choosing his opportunity, he told her, in a few earnest words which touched her deeply, that he had come to see her point of view, and to acquiesce in her decision.

Blanche heard him making an appointment with Dr. Panton to lunch at the Ritz on one of the days of the following week. He asked Sir Lyon to join them there; and Blanche saw the look of real chagrin and annoyance which passed over his face when Sir Lyon declined the invitation.

But even what was obviously sincere and real, seemed utterly insincere and unreal to Blanche Farrow, during those tense hours. Thus, when she overheard Donnington and Bubbles talking over the arrangements for their wedding, their talk seemed to her all make-believe.

At last, however, there came the moment for which she had been longing for what seemed to her an eternity.

Miss Brabazon, Sir Lyon, and Dr. Panton were the first to go off; followed, after a few minutes' interval, Donnington, Bubbles, and the luggage.

Blanche noticed that Lionel's parting with Bubbles was particularly suave and cordial. But the girl was not at her best. When her host touched her, accidentally, she shrank back, and his face clouded. And, as the motor drove off, he turned to Blanche and said discontentedly: "I wish Bubbles liked me better, Blanche!"

She hardly knew what to answer, for it was true that the girl did not like Varick, and had never liked him. Yet it seemed such a strange thing for him to trouble about that now. But Lionel, poor Lionel, had always had an almost morbid wish to be liked—to stand well with people, so she told herself with a strange feeling of pain at her heart.

They walked back together into the house, and Blanche, going over to the fire-place, poured herself out another cup of tea.

In a sense she still felt as if she was living through a terrible, unreal dream, and yet it was an unutterable relief to be no longer obliged to pretend.

She glanced furtively at Varick.

He looked calm, cheerful, collected. "Will you excuse me for a few moments? I have got several things to do," he said. "Then I think I will go out and tramp about for a bit. It's been a strain for you as well as for me, Blanche," he added sympathetically.

"Yes, it has," she answered almost inaudibly.

"Is there anything I can get you?" he asked. "Will you be quite comfortable?"

She repeated, mechanically: "Quite comfortable, thank you, Lionel," and then, as an after-thought: "I suppose we shall dine at the same time as usual?"

"Certainly—why not?" He looked puzzled at her question. "Let me see—it's not much after five now; I'll be back by seven."

He walked to the door, and from there turned round. "So long!" he cried out cheerily, and she was surprised, for Varick seldom made use of any slang or colloquialism.

Feeling all at once utterly exhausted and spent, she drew a deep chair forward to the fire and lay back in it. Her mind seemed completely to empty itself of thought. She neither remembered the past nor considered the future, and very soon she slipped off into a deep sleep—the sleep of exhaustion which so often follows a great mental strain.

* * * * *

It must have been over an hour later that Blanche seemed to awaken to a perception that the big oak door behind her, which gave access to the deep-eaved porch, had opened and closed.

She looked round; and, in the candle-light, for the fire had died down, she saw Varick, looking neither to the right nor to the left, walk quickly across the long room and slip noiselessly through the door leading to the interior of the house.

Then it was seven o'clock? Nearly three-quarters of an hour before she must go up and dress for dinner.

Almost at once she was asleep again, to be, however, thoroughly awakened a few moments later by the opening and the shutting of a door.

It was the old butler, a man Blanche had come to like and to respect.

He held a salver in his hand, and on the salver was a letter. "Mr. Varick asked me to give you this note at a quarter-past seven, ma'am. I understood him to say that he might be late for dinner to-night as he had to go up to the Reservoir Cottage."

Blanche sat up, all her senses suddenly on the alert.

"Mr. Varick came in some minutes ago," she said, "at least, I think he did."

She was beginning to wonder if Lionel had really come in, or if she had only dreamt that he had done so.

"I don't think he came in, ma'am, for I've been in the dining-room, with the door open, for a long time. I would have heard him if he had come through and gone upstairs."

"You might see if he is in," she said quietly.

She took the letter off the salver, but did not break the seal till the old man had come back with the words: "No, ma'am, Mr. Varick is not in the house."

He lingered on for a moment. "I hope you will forgive me, ma'am, for mentioning that Mr. Varick told us we could all go off early to-morrow morning if we liked, instead of next Monday. He paid us up after the visitors had gone away, and he also gave us the bonus he so kindly promised. I never wish to serve a more generous gentleman. But the chef and I decided that we would ask you, ma'am, if it is for your convenience that we leave early to-morrow?"

"Anything that Mr. Varick has arranged with you will suit me," she said quickly. "As a matter of fact, I think he would like you to leave by the train I shall be going by myself."

As the man turned away she looked down at Varick's letter. On the envelope was written in his good, clear handwriting: "The Hon. Blanche Farrow, Wyndfell Hall." But no premonition of its contents reached her still weary, excited brain.

Written on a large plain sheet of paper, the letter ran:

"My dear Blanche,—I fear I am going to give you a shock—for, by the time this reaches you, there will have been another accident—one very similar to that which befell poor little Bubbles. But this time there will be no clever, skilful Panton to bring the drowned to life.

"I suggest that you begin to feel uneasy about a quarter past eight. I leave to your good sense the details of the sad discovery. I have but one request to make to you, kindest and truest of friends; that is, that you remember what I asked you to do with reference to Panton's appointment to-morrow morning. If you can get a telegram or telephone message through to Gifford to-night, I think that appointment will be postponed indefinitely. You will perhaps think me a sentimental fool for wishing to keep Panton's good opinion, but such is my wish.

"I am distressed at the thought of the trouble and worry to which you must inevitably be exposed to-night. On the other hand, much more trouble and worry in the future will thus have been saved, even to you.

"Yours ever,

"Lionel Varick.

"I trust to your friendship to destroy this letter as soon as read."

Blanche read the letter once again, right through, then she held out the big sheet of paper, and dropped it into the heart of the fire.

For the second time that day she burst into tears, shaken to the depths by the extraordinarily complicated feelings which filled her heart and mind, feelings of horror and of pain—and yet of intense, immeasurable relief!

Then she pulled herself together, and prepared to act, for the second time that day, her part in a tragi-comedy in which where there had been two characters there was now but one.



CHAPTER XXIV

Dr. Panton's appointment at the Home Office had been for half-past ten, and, though there happened to be on this early January day an old-fashioned, black London fog, he had been punctual to the minute.

It was now eight minutes to eleven, and he began to feel rather cross and impatient.

There was nothing to do in the big, ugly, stately room into which he had been shown. There was a bookcase, but it was locked, and he had not brought a paper with him—but that, perhaps, was a good thing, for the one electric globe gave a very bad light.

He wondered what manner of man Dr. Spiller might be—in any case a remarkable and distinguished person, one of the great authorities on poisons in Europe.

At last the door opened, and Dr. Panton felt surprised—even a little disappointed. Not so had he imagined the famous Spiller.

"Forgive me for having kept you waiting, Dr.—er—Panton."

The tone of the quiet-looking, middle-aged man who stood before him was extremely courteous, if a trifle uncertain and nervous.

"If I hadn't been lodging close by I should have been late, too, Dr. Spiller."

"My name is not Spiller," said the other quickly. "I have come to explain to you that the matter concerning which you were to see Dr. Spiller this morning has been settled. We should have saved you the trouble of coming here had we known where you were staying in London."

Dr. Panton felt, not unreasonably, annoyed. "If only Dr. Spiller had sent me a wire yesterday," he exclaimed vexedly, "he had my address in the country, I should have been saved a useless visit to London!"

"He couldn't have let you know in time, for the matter was only settled this morning."

There was a pause, and then the speaker added: "You will send in a minute of your expenses, of course?"

Dr. Panton bowed stiffly. He felt that he had been badly treated.

"I'm sorry you have been put to this inconvenience," and the courteous Home Office official really did look distressed. He waited a moment. "I think you know a friend of mine, Miss Blanche Farrow, Dr. Panton?" he said a little awkwardly.

"Yes; we've both been staying in the same house for the New Year."

Panton's good-humour had come back; he was telling himself, with some amusement, how very small the world is, after all!

There was a pause, and then Panton asked: "Do you happen to know Lionel Varick, who owns the beautiful house where Miss Farrow and I have both been staying, Mr.—er—?"

"Gifford," supplied the other quickly. "Yes, I have been slightly acquainted with Mr. Varick for some years." A very uncomfortable, peculiar look came over the speaker's face. "I wonder if you have heard of the terrible thing which happened yesterday at Wyndfell Hall?" he asked abruptly.

"I only left the house at five o'clock," exclaimed Dr. Panton; and then, as he saw the look of gravity deepen on the other man's face, he asked: "Was there a fire there last night? I trust not!"

"No," said the other, slowly, "nothing has happened to the house, Dr. Panton. But your friend Mr. Varick is dead. He went out for a walk in the dark, and seems to have slipped over the side of an embankment into deep water. His body was not recovered for some hours—in fact, not till early this morning."

Dr. Panton got up from the chair on which he had been sitting. He was too shocked, too taken aback, to speak, and the other went on:

"I cannot give you many details, for when Miss Farrow telephoned to me she was very much upset, and the line was very bad. But I may add that there is no doubt about it, for the news was confirmed, through another source, half an hour later."

"What a terrible thing! What an awful—awful thing!"

The young doctor looked overwhelmed with horror and surprise. "You must forgive me," he went on, "if I seem unduly shocked; but I have lost in Lionel Varick one of the best friends man ever had, Mr. Gifford—I'd have sold the shirt off my back for him and I think I may say he'd have done the same for me."

Mark Gifford, cautious man though he was, took a sudden resolution. "If you can spare the time," he exclaimed, "I wonder, Dr. Panton, if you would go back to Wyndfell Hall to-day? It would be an act of true kindness to Miss Farrow. I had thought of going myself; but, as you seem to have been such a friend of Varick's—?"

"Of course I'll go down—by the very first train I can catch!" answered Panton eagerly.

"Perhaps you could persuade Miss Farrow to come up to London at once, and leave all the sad details connected with the inquest, and so on, to you?"

"I will indeed! Miss Farrow must be terribly distressed, for I know she was a very, very close friend of poor Varick's."

Mark Gifford winced—it was a very slight movement, quite unperceived by Dr. Panton.

To the surprise of his subordinates, who had never seen him do so much honour to any male visitor before, Mr. Gifford accompanied the young medical man along the corridor, down the stone staircase, and through to the great outer arch which gives on to the quiet street.

At the moment of their final parting Dr. Panton exclaimed: "Am I to understand that Dr. Spiller will not be sending for me again?"

"I thought I had made it clear," replied Mr. Gifford mildly, "that the matter about which he wished to see you is now closed."



THE END