She made a gesture to stay him, and by an effort seemed to shake off the threatening collapse. "No, no," she said; "please don't. It is very stupid of me, but these repeated shocks are rather trying. You see one has never had any experience of the sort before."

"It was more than stupid of me to blunder into the story," Gifford said self-reproachfully. "But it never occurred to me—"

"No, no; of course not," she responded. "And, after all, I am bound to hear all about it sooner or later. Sit down and tell me your opinion of the affair. Supposing the girl was not mistaken who do you think the person seen escaping from the window could have been?"

"That is difficult to say."

"A thief, no doubt."

"That is a natural conclusion."

"Have the police any idea?"

"Not that I know of. I should say decidedly no definite idea."

"Or Mr. Henshaw?"

"Whatever Mr. Henshaw's ideas may be he keeps them to himself."

Miss Morriston checked the remark she had seemed about to make, and for a few minutes there was an awkward silence. Gifford broke it.

"I am so sorry that I have been unable to get any hint of his intentions. Believe me, it has not been for want of trying. But the man, for reasons best known to himself, seems determined to remain inscrutable."

The girl was staring in front of her. "Yes," she responded, with a catch of her breath; "that is evident. But it does not much matter. I know you have tried your best to do what I was foolish enough to ask you. And now please do not think any more of it. In my ignorance of the man's character I set you an impossible task. All I can do now is to thank you for your sympathy and devotion."

Her tone pained him horribly. "I hope, Miss Morriston," he replied warmly, "you are not asking me to end my devotion."

She gave a little bitter laugh. "Seeing that it is useless I have no right to ask its continuance," she replied almost coldly, "nor to expect you to involve yourself in my—in our worries."

"But if I ask to be allowed that privilege?" he urged.

She shook her head. "No, no, my friend," she insisted, with less warmth than the words implied, "it can lead to no good and would be a mistake. Let the man alone. To involve yourself with him can bring you nothing but trouble. Promise me you will take no further heed of this unhappy business."

She turned to him as she spoke the last words, and there seemed less trouble in her face than in his. For at his heart there was a sickening fear and suspicion of what the words portended.

"I can't promise that," he objected.

"But I ask you; it is my wish," she returned with a touch of command.

"For my sake, or yours?" he rejoined.

"For both. Give me your promise. You must if we are to remain friends."

Her look and the fascination in her voice seemed to pull the very heart out of him.

"You are asking a cruelly hard thing of me," he replied, with a tremor in his voice. "I don't understand—"

"No, you don't understand," she interrupted quickly. "It is enough to know that you have taken a girl's foolish commission too seriously, so seriously as to run the risk of making things even worse than they threatened to be. Now I ask you to leave well alone."

"If it is well," he said doubtfully.

"Of course. Why should it not be?" she rejoined, in a not very convincing tone. "Now I shall rely on you—and I am sure it will not be in vain—to respect my wishes. Things seem to be in a horrible muddle," she added with a rather dreary laugh, "but let's hope they will right themselves before long."

She rose, compelling him to rise too. Something in the tone and manner of her last speech made him quite unwilling to end their conference, and desperately anxious to speak out everything that was in his mind and try to bring matters to a crisis.

"Don't go for a moment," he said as she began to move away towards the house. "I have something to say to you."

She turned quickly and faced him with a suggestion of displeasure in her eyes. "What is it?" she said with a touch of impatience.

"Only this," he answered quietly. "Have you lost a brooch, Miss Morriston?"

At the question the blood left her cheeks as it had done a little while before; then surged back till her face was suffused.

"A brooch? Yes; I have missed one. Have you found it?" The words were spoken with a calmness which failed to hide the eagerness behind them.

"I think so," he answered, taking out his letter-case. "A pearl, set in diamonds mounted on a safety-pin?"

He opened the case and showed it pinned into the soft lining.

"Yes; that is mine," she said; and for a moment or two by a strange attraction each looked into the other's eyes.

Gifford bent his head over the case as he unfastened the brooch and took it out.

"Where—where did you find it?" Something in the girl's voice made him glad that he was not looking at her.

"In the garden," he said.

"In the garden?" she repeated. He was looking up now and saw the intense relief in her face. "To-day?"

"No; last time I was up here. I ought to have taken it to the house at once but—but it was a temptation to me to keep it till I could give it back to you like this. Do forgive me."

It was plain she divined what he meant, but her cold manner came to the aid of her embarrassment.

"I am only too glad to have it again. I am so glad you found it."

"So am I," he responded with a touch of fervour. "I wish I could relieve your mind of everything else as easily."

"I am sure you do," she said wistfully, and impulsively half put out her hand.

He caught it as she was in the act of checking the action and drawing it back. "You may be sure—quite sure, of my devotion," he said, and raised her hand to his lips.

An exclamation and a sudden start as the hand was quickly withdrawn made him look up. Edith Morriston's eyes were fixed with something like fear on an object behind him. An intuition told him what it was before he looked round to see Henshaw, with his characteristic, rather stealthy walk, coming towards them.

Gifford set his teeth hard as the two faced round and awaited Henshaw's approach.

"This man shall not annoy you," he said in an undertone.

"Don't quarrel with him, for heaven's sake," she entreated in the same tone, under her breath, as the disturbing presence drew near. There was a strange excitement in her voice, though none in the set face.

"I think your brother is looking for you, Miss Morriston," Henshaw said in his even voice when he was within a dozen paces of them.

"I was just going to look for him," the girl replied in a voice strangely changed from that in which she had talked with Gifford. "Isn't it lucky? Mr. Gifford has picked up in the garden a brooch I lost some days ago. I did not dare to tell Dick, as it was his gift."

Henshaw gave a casual glance at the ornament. "I congratulate you," he responded coolly. Then Gifford saw his eyes seek hers as he added: "Where was it found? Near the tower?"

The covert malice of the insinuation was plain in the questioner's look, although the tone was casual enough.

"No. On the lawn," Gifford replied quietly.



CHAPTER XIX

IN THE CHURCHYARD

Nothing more of importance happened that day at Wynford, and Gifford had no further opportunity of private talk with Edith Morriston. But it was evident to him, and the knowledge gave him intense concern, that the girl went in fear of Gervase Henshaw. That he was intimidating her, and using his brother's death for that purpose, was beyond doubt, and the very fact that Edith Morriston was a woman of uncommon courage and self-control, one who in ordinary circumstances would be the last to give way to fear or submit to bullying, showed how serious the matter had become.

Gifford on his part determined that this intolerable state of things must come to an end, and that in spite of the command laid upon him by the girl, he would now pit himself against her persecutor. He had given no actual promise, and even if he had it would have been drawn from him in ignorance of certain means which he possessed of help in this crisis.

And a significant circumstance which came to Gifford's knowledge a day or two after his interview with Edith Morriston in the garden of Wynford, was the cause of his beginning to take action without further delay.

Late on the next Sunday afternoon Gifford had gone for a country walk which he had arranged to bring him round in time for the evening service at the little village church of Wynford standing just outside the park boundary. His way took him by well-remembered field-paths which, although towards the end of his walk darkness had set in, he had no difficulty in tracing. The last field he crossed brought him to a by-road joining the highway which ran through Wynford, the junction being about a quarter of a mile from the church. As he neared the stile which admitted to the road he saw, on the other side of the hedge and showing just above it, the head of a man. At the sound of his footsteps the man quickly turned, and, as for a moment the fitful moonlight caught his face, Gifford was sure he recognized Gervase Henshaw. But he took no notice and kept on his way to the stile, which he crossed and gained the road. As he did so he glanced back. A horse and trap was waiting there with Henshaw in it. He was now bending down, probably with the object of concealing his identity, and had moved on a few paces farther down the road.

Why was he waiting there? Gifford asked himself the obvious question with a decidedly uneasy feeling. Henshaw the Londoner, on a Sunday evening, waiting with a horse and trap in an unfrequented lane, a road which ran nowhere but to a farm. What did it mean?

Naturally Gifford's suspicions connected Edith Morriston with the circumstance, and yet he told himself the idea was monstrously improbable. It was more likely that Henshaw was bound upon some search with the police. His movements were and had been for some time mysterious enough.

Gifford's impulse as he turned into the high road was to stay there in concealment and watch for the upshot of Henshaw's presence. The suggestion did not, however, altogether commend itself to him. He disliked the idea of spying even upon such a man as Henshaw, whom he had good reason to suspect of playing a dastardly game. It was probable, too, that Henshaw had recognized him and might be on the look-out; it would be intensely humiliating to be caught watching. So, turning the pros and cons over in his mind, Gifford walked slowly on in a state of irresolution till he came to a wicket-gate which admitted from the road to a path which ran through the churchyard.

There he stopped, debating with himself whether he should turn back and keep an eye on Henshaw or go on into the church where service was just beginning. It did seem absurd to imagine that Henshaw with his conveyance could be waiting there by appointment for a girl of the character and position of Edith Morriston. True, he had seen them walking together in secret, which was strange enough, but that need not necessarily have been a planned meeting.

Such an urgent curiosity had hold of him at the bare possibility of something wrong that he, temporizing with his scruples, was about to turn back to the lane, when he saw the figure of a woman coming towards him along the churchyard path. She was tall and so far as he could make out, muffled in a cloak and veil. His heart gave a leap, for although the woman's face and figure were indistinguishable the height and gait corresponded with those of Edith Morriston.

As she came near the little gate where he stood she stopped dead, seemed to hesitate a moment, and then turned as though to go back. Determined to set his doubts at rest Gifford passed quickly through the gate and followed her at an overtaking pace. Evidently sensible of her pursuit, the woman quickened her steps and, as Gifford gained on her, turned quickly from the path, threading her way among the graves to escape him. She had gone but a few steps when in her hurry she tripped over the mound of a small, unmarked grave and fell to the ground.

Gifford ran to her and taking her arm assisted her to rise.

"Miss Morriston!" he exclaimed, for he now was sure of her identity. "I hope you are not hurt," he added mechanically, his mind full of a greater and more critical contingency.

"Mr. Gifford!" she responded; but he was sure she had not recognized him then for the first time. "Oh, no, thank you; I am not in the least hurt. It was stupid of me to trip and fall like that. Are you going to church?" she added, evidently wishing to get away.

"I was," he answered. "And you?"

"I was too," she said, conquering her embarrassment, "but I have a headache, and prefer the fresh air. Don't let me keep you," she held out her hand. "Service has begun."

He took her hand. "Miss Morriston," he said gravely, "don't think me very unmannerly, but I am not going to leave you here."

In the bright moonlight he could see her expression of rather haughty surprise. "I think you are unmannerly, Mr. Gifford," she retorted defiantly. "May I ask why you are not going to leave me here?"

"Because," he answered with quiet decision, "Mr. Henshaw is waiting just there in Turner's Lane."

"Is he?" The same defiant note; but there was anxiety behind the cold pretence.

"Yes. And pardon me, I have an idea he is waiting there for you."

His firm tone and manner baffled equivocation. "What is it to you if he is?" she returned with a brave attempt to suggest cold displeasure. But her lip trembled and her voice was scarcely steady.

"It is something to me," he replied insistently, "because it means a great deal to you. This man is persecuting you. He is—"

"Mr. Gifford!" she exclaimed. "You take—"

He held up his hand. "Please let me finish, Miss Morriston. I can convince you that I am not taking too much upon myself. I am no fool and am not interfering without warrant. This man Henshaw has succeeded in persuading you that you are in his power. That is very far from being the case, and I can prove it."

"I don't understand you, Mr. Gifford."

The tone of cold annoyance was gone now. Relief and a vague hope seemed to be struggling with an almost overwhelming anxiety.

"You will understand directly," he replied. "I have more than a suspicion that this man is seeking to connect you with his brother's death and is making use of a certain half-knowledge he possesses to get a hold over you. Is that not so?"

For a while she was silent, her breath coming quickly, as she hesitated how to meet the direct question. Gifford hated, yet somehow rejoiced, to see this proud, cold-mannered girl brought to this pass, and the reason he rejoiced lay in the knowledge that he could help her out of it.

At length she spoke. "Mr. Gifford, I trust you as a man of honour. Your conjecture is right, but unhappily there is no help for it."

"There is help," he declared reassuringly. "Can this man prove that you are in any way guilty of his brother's death?"

The girl gave a shiver. "He can by implication," she admitted in a low voice.

"Can he prove it?"

"Not actually, perhaps. But far enough to disgrace me and mine for ever," she said with a sob.

"And with that idea he terrorizes you?" The question was put with quiet sternness.

"Yes, yes; but I cannot help it! I cannot bear it. Oh, let me go." She seemed now in an agony of fear.

Gifford laid his hand on her as she sought to move away towards the gate and the waiting enemy.

"Miss Morriston," he said with decision, "you must not go; you must have no more communication with this man Henshaw. He can prove nothing against you, while I can prove everything in your favour."

Her look of fear and impatience changed at the last words to one of startled incredulity.

"You, Mr. Gifford? What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I say," he returned decisively, "I can prove, if need be, that you had no hand in that cowardly ruffian's death."

"You? How?" the girl gasped, staring at him with dilated eyes.

"I will convince you," he answered quietly. "When I told you the other day that I had found your brooch on the lawn I said, for an obvious reason, what was not true. I found it in the room where Clement Henshaw died."

"You did," the girl gasped almost in terror. "When?"

"A few minutes after his death," Gifford replied calmly. "I happened to be present in the room when he came by his fatal wound."



CHAPTER XX

AN INVOLUNTARY EAVESDROPPER

As she heard the words Edith Morriston stood for a moment as though transfixed, and then staggered back grasping at a tombstone for support. Gifford took a quick step forward, but before he could be of help she had recovered from the shock, and motioning him back, was looking at him with incredulous eyes.

"You were there?" she repeated, with more suspicion now than unbelief.

"In that room at the top of the tower; yes; by accident," he answered in a tone calculated to reassure her.

"Then you know—you saw what happened?"

He bowed his head in assent. "Enough to be sure that Mr. Clement Henshaw was a great scoundrel, and that his fate was not altogether unmerited. Now," he added in a tone of decision, "you will have nothing more to do with this Gervase Henshaw, or he with you."

It was good to see the eager relief in Edith Morriston's eyes.

"And you never told me this before," she said.

"I could not very well," he replied. "And I should not have told you now had I not been forced to protect you from this man. It is a dangerous position for me to stand in, and I should in ordinary circumstances have let the affair remain a mystery."

"I understand your position," she responded, with a look of gratitude. "But you can trust me."

"Indeed I can," he assured her with infinite content.

"I don't realize it now," the girl said, with signs that she was fighting against the effect of the reaction. "Can you trust me enough to tell me how it all happened?"

"I would trust you with my life," he responded fervently. "Though it hardly comes to that. Of course I will tell you the whole story of my adventure. But we had better not stay here. Mr. Henshaw must be getting impatient by this time and may come to look for you. Before he has the chance of meeting you it will be well for you to hear the real facts of the case. Shall we come into the park, or would your brother—"

"Dick is at church," she said, a little shamefacedly, it seemed. "I gave him the slip."

"What a terrible risk you have just run," Gifford observed as they went through the churchyard to the private gate into the park. "If I had not happened to come along just then and see Henshaw waiting—"

"Oh, don't talk of that now," she entreated. "I knew it meant horrible misery for the rest of my life, but anything seemed better than the terrible scandal which threatened us."

"With which Henshaw threatened you, the scoundrel," Gifford corrected. "Now you shall see how little he really had to go upon."

"And yet," she murmured, "it seemed overwhelming. I can scarcely believe even now that the danger is past."

"Wait till you hear my story," he said with a reassuring smile.

They had entered the enclosed path, called Church Walk, and passing the branch which led to the drive, kept on between the tall laurel hedges.

"We shall be quite undisturbed here," the girl said. "Dick is sure to turn off and go in by the drive. Now, Mr. Gifford, do trust me and tell me everything."

"I hope it is not necessary to talk of trust between us," he replied, with as much tenderness as his chivalry permitted.

"No; forgive me; I hope not," she responded quietly. "Now please tell me, Mr. Gifford, what I am longing to hear."

"You will remember," Gifford began, as they slowly paced the moon-lit path, "that on the evening I came down here my suitcase containing my evening clothes had gone astray on the railway. There was no chance of its turning up at the hotel before ten o'clock, and I was therefore prevented from appearing at the dance till quite late. Naturally I would not hear of Kelson waiting for me, which like the good-natured fellow he is, he proposed to do; he therefore went off in good time."

"Yes; I remember he arrived quite early," Edith Morriston murmured.

"Clement Henshaw," Gifford proceeded, "left the hotel about the same time. They must have reached your house within a few minutes of one another."

As he paused, his companion looked round at him inquiringly. "Yes," she said, with a certain suggestion of reticence; "I remember that too."

Gifford continued. "Having seen Kelson off, I went up to our sitting-room to wait till my kit should arrive. I was very keen on seeing again the old place where in my young days I used to spend such happy months, and my enforced waiting soon became almost intolerable boredom. The result was that I got a fit of the fidgets; I could not settle down to read, and at last, having still an hour to spare, I resolved in my restlessness to stroll out and take a preliminary look from outside at what was practically my old home."

"Yes." There was a catch of growing excitement in Edith Morriston's voice, which was scarcely above a whisper.

"The wind was sharp that night, as we all know," Gifford went on, "and forbade loitering. A smart walk of fifteen or twenty minutes brought me here, knowing as I did every path and short cut across the park. The old familiar house looked picturesque enough with its many lighted windows and every sign of gaiety. Keeping away from the front entrance where carriages were constantly driving up and a good many people were about, I went round to the other side, avoiding the stables and passing along by the west wing. This, of course, brought me to the old tower, the scene of many a game and frolic in my young days. At its foot I stood for a while recalling memories of the past. In the mere idleness of affectionate remembrance I went up to the garden door of the tower and mechanically turned the handle. It was unlocked.

"I hardly know what made me go in; an impulse to stand again in those once familiar surroundings. It was fascinating to be in the old tower which the dim light showed me was just as I had last seen it more than a dozen years ago. The past came vividly back to me, and I stood there for a while indulging in a reverie of old days. The associations of the place seemed every moment to grip me more compellingly. The tower seemed quiet and altogether deserted; all I could hear was the dance-music away in the hall. There could be no risk, I thought, of being seen if I went up to the floor above: and I quietly ascended the stairs to the first landing. The narrow passage leading to the hall was lighted up with sconces; at its farther end I could see the movement of the dancers. The band was playing a favourite waltz of mine, and I stayed there rather enjoying the music and the sight from my safe retreat.

"It did not seem likely that any one would be coming to the tower, and I resolved, foolishly enough, for, of course, I was in my travelling suit, to wander up to the next floor and take a look at the room which held a rather sentimental association for me. It was a stupid thing to do as I was there in, for the moment, a rather questionable situation, still I felt pretty secure from being noticed, and went up warily to the next floor.

"There I found the room considerably altered from my recollection of it, especially as it was arranged as a sitting-out room, but no one was there, nor were there any signs of its having been used, which from its rather secluded position, was natural enough.

"Having given a reminiscent look round I concluded that it would be best to make a retreat, especially as there would be ample opportunity later in the evening for me to visit it again. I turned and went to the door. On reaching the stairs I heard to my great annoyance the sounds of persons coming up and the subdued tones of a man's voice, I realized that I was caught, and my one chance of escape was to retreat up the topmost flight of stairs and wait in the darkness till the couple had gone into the room I had just quitted.

"Accordingly I turned and went up the remaining flight on tip-toe, two stairs at a time, waiting beyond the turn in hiding till the coast should be clear.

"The couple had now reached the landing below and, so far as I could tell, went into the room. I was just about to make a quick descent, hoping to get past that and other awkward points unnoticed, when to my dismay I became aware that the people whom I had thought safely settled in the room below had come out and were beginning to mount the topmost flight of stairs. This was indeed a most awkward predicament for me, and I debated for a moment whether my best course would not be to go boldly down the stairs and pass them, rather than retreat to the top room. If I had chosen the former course how differently things might have turned out; at any rate, for better or worse, the situation as it exists to-day might have presented itself in quite another form."

Edith Morriston glanced quickly at Gifford as he uttered the reflection. She seemed about to speak, but checked the impulse, and he continued:

"Treading noiselessly, I bolted up the remaining stairs and went into the dark room at the top. At the door, which stood open, I stopped and listened. To my intense vexation, for the situation was becoming decidedly unpleasant, the pair were still coming up. In silence now, but I could hear their approaching footsteps and the rustle of the lady's dress. Unfortunately, there was no corner on the top landing where I could stand hidden, so I was forced to draw back into the room.

"Happily it had been so familiar to me from childhood that I could find my way about it in the dark. I well remembered the little inner room formed by the bartizan of the tower, and into this I tip-toed, feeling horribly guilty. If only I had not been in that suspicious brown suit! In evening clothes there would, of course, have been no necessity for this surreptitious retreat. I devoutly hoped that the two were merely bent on exploring the place and that the darkness of the old lumber-room would quickly satisfy their curiosity and send them down again. I heard them come into the room, the man speaking in a tone so low that the words were indistinguishable from where I stood; and then the sound of the door being shut struck my ear unpleasantly.

"Then the man spoke in a more audible voice, a voice which in a flash I recognized as Henshaw's. And his first words caught my attention with an unpleasant grip."



CHAPTER XXI

GIFFORD CONTINUES HIS STORY

"'Failing to get the regular invitation I had a right to expect, I have had to take this mode of seeing you,' I just caught the words in Henshaw's metallic, rather penetrating voice.

"The lady's reply was given in a tone so low that at the distance I stood the words were indistinguishable.

"'Unmanly?' he exclaimed, evidently taking up her word. 'I don't admit that for a moment. You know how we stand to one another and what my feelings are towards you. It is no use for you to try to ignore them or me. I won't stand being treated like this. There is no reason why my advances should be repulsed as though they were an insult.'

"I caught the last words of the lady's reply: '—good reason, and you know it.'

"It was more than clear to me now that I was to be the witness of a very hateful piece of business. The man's tone, even more than his words, made my blood boil, and I began to congratulate myself on being thus accidentally in a position to protect, if need be, the girl whom this fellow was evidently bullying. With the utmost care I crept nearer to the small curtained arch which admitted to the larger room. The pitch darkness of the little turret chamber in which I stood made me feel quite safe from observation. And I had no qualms now about eavesdropping; the situation surely justified it.

"I went forward till I could get a sight round the arch of the two persons in the room. They were standing near the window at some distance from me. In the obscurity, not quite as impenetrable as that out of which I looked, I could distinguish the tall figure of the girl in a dark ball-dress, and facing her, towards me, the big form of Henshaw."

"You had no idea who the lady was?" Edith Morriston interrupted him to ask.

"Naturally not the vaguest," Gifford answered. "When I had gone as far as was safe, I set myself to listen again.

"'I don't know what your game is or whether you think you can play the fool with me,' Henshaw was saying in an ugly tone. 'But I warn you not to try it; I am not a man to be fooled. Now let us be friends again,' he added in a softer tone.

"It seemed as though he put out his hand for a caress, for the girl started back and I heard her say 'Never!'

"'Folly!' he exclaimed. Then took a step forward. 'You are in love with another man?' he demanded. I could hear the hiss of the question.

"'If I were I should not tell you,' was the defiant reply in a low voice.

"'You would not?' he snapped viciously. 'Let me tell you this, then. You shall never marry another man while I live. I hold the bar to that, as you will find.'

"'You mean to act like a cad?' I heard the girl say.

"'I mean to act,' he retorted, 'like a sensible man who has a fair advantage and means, in spite of your caprice, to keep it.'

"'Fair?' the girl echoed in scorn.

"'Yes, fair,' Henshaw insisted with some heat. 'I saved you from a scandal that would have ruined you, and it was natural I should ask my reward. But your notions of gratitude, which had led me on to love you, soon evaporated; but I am not so easily dismissed.'

"'You mean to continue your cowardly persecution?' There was a tremor in the girl's voice that made me long to get at the man.

"'I mean to marry you,' he retorted. 'Or at least—'

"'Don't touch me!' she said hoarsely as he approached her.

"'You are coming away with me to-night,' he insisted. 'You need not pretend to be horrified. It won't be your first nocturnal adventure, and I have waited quite long enough.'

"He had driven her to the other corner on the window side of the room. As I leaned forward ready to fasten on the man when he should offer violence I heard a peculiar sound as of a loose piece of wood or iron striking the sill.

"'Keep away!' the girl said in a hoarse whisper. 'If you drive me to desperation I swear I will kill you.'

"There followed a vicious laugh from Henshaw and I could tell from the panting which followed that a struggle was going on. Just then the moon came out and I could see that Henshaw was trying to get some object—a weapon, I guessed—away from the girl. It is a wonder that neither of them saw me. In the dark opening I must have still been practically hidden, and they too intent on their struggle to notice anything beyond.

"I was just on the point of springing out to the girl's assistance when she staggered back and, turning, made a rush for the door. In a moment Henshaw was after her, but in his blind haste he either tripped or stumbled and fell heavily. I think it likely that in the dark he struck against the corner of the rather massive oak table in the centre of the room and was thrown off his balance. He rose immediately, but I was now close behind him, and as he put out his arm to clutch the girl, who was then half through the doorway, I gripped him by the collar and with all my strength swung him back into the room.

"He must have been most horribly surprised, for he uttered a gasping cry as he spun round, and instead of keeping his feet and rushing at me as I expected he went down with a thud by the window."

They had stopped in their walk now, and Edith Morriston was listening almost breathlessly to Gifford's graphic story. Never for a moment had he suggested the lady's identity; for all that had passed neither of them might have known it.

"I turned quickly to the door," Gifford continued, "but to my surprise the lady whom I expected to find there had disappeared. I could neither see nor hear any sign of her.

"I took a step back into the room, fully expecting an onslaught from the infuriated Henshaw. 'You cowardly brute!' I exclaimed in the heat of my anger and excitement. But no reply came, and to my wonder he lay still on the floor where he had fallen."



CHAPTER XXII

HOW GIFFORD ESCAPED

"I waited for some time in silence, expecting him every moment to rise and retaliate. He was a big, muscular man, but it never occurred to me to be in any fear of him physically. For one thing my indignation was too hot to admit fear; I happen to be quite good enough at boxing to be able to take care of myself, and I was sure—all the more from his continuing to lie there—that such a despicable bully must be a coward.

"'You had better get up and clear out of this house,' I said wrathfully, 'before you get the thrashing you so richly deserve.'

"No answer came. As I waited for one there was, save for my own breathing, dead silence in the room. Before speaking I had heard something like a long drawn sigh come from the man on the floor, but now, listening intently, I could hear nothing. Two explanations suggested themselves to account for his still lying there. One, shame at his vile conduct having been witnessed by a third person, the other that he had struck his head against the wall in falling and was stunned.

"Naturally I was not greatly concerned at the fellow's condition, whichever it was; still it would, I concluded, be well to settle the matter, and if he was merely skulking see that he cleared out of the house. I shut the door, and then crossing to where the man lay, struck a match and held it out to get a view of him.

"He lay on his face with his arms bent under him. I prodded him with my foot, but he did not stir; he lay absolutely, rather uncannily still. The match burned out; I struck another and leaned over to get a sight of his face. To my horror there met my eyes a dark wet patch on the floor which I instinctively felt must be blood. You may imagine the terrible thrill the conviction gave me. Yet I could not believe even then that anything really serious had happened.

"I struck a fresh match and holding it up with one hand, with the other took the man's shoulder and turned him over on his back. Then I knew that I was there with a dead man. The hue of the face was unmistakably that of death. And the cause of it was plainly to be seen. There was a wound in the man's neck from which blood came freely.

"How had the wound—clearly a fatal one—been caused? I searched for an explanation. That which forced itself upon me was that the girl had in her desperation stabbed her persecutor with some weapon she had found there or brought with her. It was a horrible idea to entertain, although the act would have been almost justified. I wondered if by chance the weapon was still there. Striking a match I looked round. Yes; there on the floor near the spot where Henshaw had first fallen, lay a narrow blood-stained chisel.

"Whatever my first conclusions were I can see now the most probable explanation of how Henshaw came by his death-wound. He had forced the chisel away from the girl; he had kept it in his hand; in his eagerness to prevent his victim's escape he had not realized that he was holding it point upwards, and when he fell it had pierced him with all the force of his heavy body falling plump on it."

"Then you know it was an accident?" Edith Morriston drew a great breath of relief from the painful tension with which she had listened.

"I can see it was a pure accident," Gifford answered. "All the same it was an accident with an ugly look about it, and I quickly realized that I was in an equivocal—not to say dangerous, situation."

"It was a terrible predicament for you," the girl said sympathetically.

"It was indeed. And one which called for prompt action. Moreover the very fact that I was not in evening clothes made it all the more suspicious. I pulled my wits together and proceeded to make quite sure that the man was actually dead. That I found was beyond all doubt the case, and it now remained for me to make my escape before being found there in that hideous situation.

"I went out to the landing, closing the door after me, with the idea of getting down the stairs and escaping into the garden as secretly as I had come in. I had crept down a very few stairs when I found this was not to be. A chatter of voices just below told me that people were in the tower, and leaning over I could see couples passing between the passage to the hall and the room below me.

"At any moment, I realized, some of them might take it into their heads to explore the topmost room, when the result would be disastrous. Certainly in my mufti I could not get past the next floor just then without exciting fatal notice, and to wait for an opportunity when the coast might be clear was too dangerous, seeing the risk of someone coming up.

"It was not easy to see my way of escape. I went to the top room and locked the door. My nerves were pretty strong, but they were severely tried when I shut myself in with the dead man and had the consciousness of having laid myself open to the charge of being his murderer. I stood there by the door thinking desperately what I could do. Fool that I had been to venture into the place in that garb. But who could have foreseen the result? Anyhow there was no time for reflection; it was necessary to act and seek a possible expedient. Hopelessly enough I went into the little inner room and struck a match. In a moment a thrill of hope came to me, for the first object the light showed me was a big coil of rope conspicuous among the odds and ends of lumber in the recess. The idea of escape by the window had only occurred to me to be dismissed as a sheer impossibility; the height of the tower made that quite prohibitive, but here seemed a chance of it. If only the rope was long enough.

"I got hold of the coil as my match burned out, and pulled it away from the surrounding rubbish. Its weight gave me hope that it would be sufficient. In haste I dragged it to the outer room into which the moonlight was now streaming. With a shuddering glance at the dead man, whose ashen face stared up in ghastly fashion in the moonbeams, I opened the window and looked out to make sure that no one was below. Satisfied on that point I brought forward the rope and began paying it out of the window. To my content I saw that there was a strong iron stanchion at the side which would allow of the rope being fastened to it.

"There was light enough just then to enable me to see pretty well when the end of the rope reached the ground, and upon examining what was left in the room I calculated that not much more than half was outside. In a flash the discovery gave me an idea. Why should I not simply pass the rope behind the stanchion and use it doubled? By that means I could pull it down after me when I reached the ground, and so not only effect my escape but also leave the fact unknown. That, together with the door locked on the inside, would tend to make Henshaw's death a mystery with a strong probability in favour of suicide, which would be altogether the happiest conclusion to arrive at. In fact my hastily formed calculation was, as we know, subsequently borne out and the suicide theory would probably have been quietly accepted had it not been for the intervention of Gervase Henshaw with his smartness and incredulity.

"That is practically the end of my story, Miss Morriston. I laid the chisel by the body, went to the window, pulled in the rope, carefully got the centre, adjusted it through the stanchion, and with a last look at the dead man, got out of the window, a rather nerve-trying business, and began to lower myself. I had calculated that the double rope was long enough to take me to within a few feet of the ground, and this proved to be the case. When I came to the end I let go of one side and pulled the other with me as I dropped. Then I drew the rope down, the latter half when released falling with a great thud. Hastily I set off for the lake, dragging the rope after me. At the landing-stage by the boat-house I coiled it up as best I could and threw it in. As I had anticipated it was thick and heavy enough to sink without being weighted. Then with a last glance at the tower I made my way as quickly as possible to the hotel in a state of nerves which you may imagine, little thinking that my descent from the tower had been witnessed. My first intention was to abandon all idea of going to the dance, but on reflection I came to the conclusion that I had better at least put in an appearance there.

"Accordingly I changed and came on late to the ball, as you know. Naturally a great curiosity possessed me to find out the girl who had played the third part in the drama which had been enacted in the tower. But I had not seen her face, nor heard her voice sufficiently to be able to recognize it. There were several tall girls in the room, yourself among the number, but naturally it never occurred to me—"

He stopped awkwardly, just as by inadvertence he was about to say that which all along he had studiously refrained from suggesting.

"To suspect me," Edith Morriston completed his sentence with a smile.

"No," he continued frankly. "You would have been the last person to enter my head in that connexion. And then Kelson came out of the passage from the tower with Miss Tredworth, to whom he had just proposed. He introduced me in a way which suggested their new relationship, and we had just began to chat when to my horror I noticed what to my mind went to prove that she was the person for whom I was looking. There were dark red stains on the white roses she wore on her dress. It was an unpleasant shock to me, placing me, as it seemed, in a terribly difficult position. For, at the first blush of my discovery, it all seemed to fit in. Clement Henshaw had been, I imagined, in love with Miss Tredworth before Kelson appeared on the scene. She had thrown him over for my friend, and Henshaw, taking his rejection in bad part, had threatened to expose some questionable incident in her past. Now that is all happily explained away, and I won't retrace the steps by which my imagination led me on; but you see how painfully I was situated with respect to my friend.

"That is my story, Miss Morriston. Had I known what I know now I should not have kept it to myself so long; but up to a certain point, until the last few days, there seemed no reason for making the dangerous secret known to any one. Now, when it appears necessary to protect you from this man, Henshaw, the account of the part I played in the tragedy must be told in your interest."

Edith Morriston drew in a deep breath as Gifford ceased speaking. "It is very kind and chivalrous of you, Mr. Gifford," she said in a low voice, "to run this risk for me, although your telling me the story shall never involve you in danger."

"I am ready for your sake to face any danger the telling of my secret may hold for me," he responded firmly.

"I am sure of that, as I am sure of you," she replied. Then added with a change of tone, "You were certain for a while that Muriel Tredworth had not only been guilty of something discreditable in her past but had stabbed to death in your presence the man who knew her secret."

"I'm afraid there seemed to me no alternative but to believe it," he acknowledged.

"When you found out that you were mistaken in her identity and that she had nothing whatever to do with the tragedy you would naturally transfer the opinion you had held of her to—to the other woman—the one who was actually there?"

The question was put searchingly and was not to be evaded.

"That would be a natural consequence," Gifford admitted frankly. "But there was in my mind always a growing doubt whether the wound had not been given accidentally. And that doubt became almost certainty when the real identity of Henshaw's victim became apparent."

Edith Morriston looked at him steadily. "You know it—for certain?" she asked almost coldly.

"Naturally I cannot fail to know it now," he answered sympathetically.

She gave a rather bitter laugh. "I shall not deny it to you, Mr. Gifford, even if I thought it could be of any use. But, knowing so much, you owe it to me to hear my explanation of matters which look so black against me, and above all to accept my absolute assurance that so far as I am concerned Clement Henshaw's wound was quite accidental. Indeed I never dreamt that he had been hurt until his body was found."

Gifford seized her hand by an irresistible impulse.

"Miss Morriston, if you only knew how glad and relieved I am to hear you say that!" he exclaimed.

"When you hear my story," she said, composedly but with an underlying bitterness which was hardly to be concealed, "the story of a long martyrdom of persecution—for it has been nothing less—you will acquit me of being guilty of anything disreputable. What I did was innocent enough and it moreover was forced upon me."

"Tell me," he urged tenderly.

"I must tell you," she returned, "if only to set myself right in your eyes who have been witness of the terrible sequel to it all. But not to-night; it is too late, and the story is long: it must be told at length. Dick will be home by this and I must go. I would ask you to come in, but there would be no opportunity for private talk there. Will you meet me to-morrow morning at half-past ten by the summer-house near the wood that runs up to James' farm? You know it?"

"Well. I will be there."

"It is rather a long way for you to come," she said, "but there are reasons for avoiding the big wood with the rides."

"I know," he replied. "Henshaw might be on the look-out there for you." Then he added in answer to her quick look of curiosity, "I happened once by accident to see him there with you."

"Ah, yes," she admitted with a shudder, "I will tell you about that."

"I think I can guess," he said quietly. "Now in the meantime you will take no notice of this man if he writes or tries to see you. He will probably be exasperated by your not keeping the appointment this evening and may determine to put the screw on."

"Yes," she agreed with a lingering fear in her voice.

"Leave him to me to deal with," Gifford said reassuringly. "And do make up your mind that all will be well."

"I will, thanks to you, my friend in need."

And so, with a warm pressure of the hands, they parted.



CHAPTER XXIII

EDITH MORRISTON'S STORY

Next morning Gifford was in good time at the rendezvous, a sequestered corner of the park, and Edith Morriston soon joined him. "Let us come into the summer-house," she suggested; "it will be more convenient for my long story."

"First of all, tell me," Gifford said, "has anything happened since last night? Has Henshaw made any move?"

She took out a note and handed it to him. "Only that," she said with an uneasy laugh.

"There must have been some misunderstanding last evening," Gifford read. "I cannot think that your not keeping the appointment was intentional. Anyhow I can wait till to-night, then I shall be at the lane just beyond the church at 7.30. That you may not repent I hope you have not repented." That was all.

"A thinly veiled threat," Gifford observed. "The man in his way seems as great a bully as his brother. May I keep this? I am going to see Mr. Henshaw presently, and have a serious talk with him. After which I shall hope to be able to convince you that your troubles are at an end."

"If you can do that—" she said.

"The knowledge that I have been of service to you will be my great reward. I hope I am sufficiently a gentleman not to ask or expect any other."

She made no reply. They had entered the little rustic summer-house, and sat down.

"Dick has driven into Branchester," Edith Morriston said, perhaps to end an embarrassing pause. "He will not be back till luncheon, so we are not likely to be interrupted."

"That's well," Gifford answered. "Now please begin what I am most anxious to hear."

"The story I have to tell you, Mr. Gifford," Edith Morriston began, "is not a pleasant one and is as humiliating to me to relate as was the experience, the terrible experience, I had to go through. But to be fair to myself I must be quite frank with you, and am sure you will never give me cause to repent speaking unreservedly."

"You can rely upon my honour to respect your confidence," Gifford responded warmly.

"I know I may," the girl answered. "Well, then, you must know first of all, that my father married a second time, and he unfortunately chose a woman well connected enough, but heartless and an utter snob. I suppose men are often blind to these hateful qualities before marriage; doubtless a clever, unscrupulous woman is able to hide her faults when she has the main chance in view. My stepmother was a good deal younger than my father, and I dare say on the whole made him, socially at any rate, a fairly good wife. Her one idea was social aggrandizement at any cost, and I unhappily was to fall a victim to it.

"I suppose we ought not to blame her for determining that I ought to marry well; she wanted to do the best for the family and was constitutionally incapable of making allowance for or considering any one's private feelings. To make a long story short, my stepmother, in pursuance of her policy, determined that I should marry a certain peer whose name I need not mention. He was altogether a bad lot, and I soon came to know it. I received certain warnings, but without them I could see that the man was all wrong, and I told my stepmother what I thought of him.

"She scoffed at the idea that he was any worse than the average man. All I had to concern myself with was the fact that he was a peer of ancient lineage, of large property, and there wasn't another girl in the kingdom who wouldn't jump at him. I might well chance his making me unhappy since he could make me a countess, and to refuse him would be absolute madness; Mrs. Morriston's face grew black at the very thought of it. She soon got my father on to her side, and between them I had a hateful time of it. It's the old story, which will be told as long as there are worldly, selfish women on the earth, but it was none the less fresh and poignant to me who had to live through the experience.

"Things got so bad through my continued refusal to fall in with my stepmother's wishes that I was reduced to a state bordering on despair. My father, whom I loved, was turned against me; his mind was so prejudiced in favour of the man whom I was being gradually forced to take as a husband that he could see no good reason, only sheer obstinacy, in my refusal. Altogether my life was becoming a perfect hell. Dick, who might have stood by me, and made things less unbearable, was away on a two years' tour for big game shooting; I had no one to confide in, no one to help me.

"Just as things were at their worst and I was getting quite desperate, I met at a dance a man named Archie Jolliffe. He had been a sailor, but having come into money had given up the Service and settled down to enjoy himself. He and I got on very well together from the first; he was a breezy, genial, young fellow, fond of fun and adventure and a pleasant contrast in every way to the man who was threatening to ruin my life. I don't know that in happier circumstances I should have cared for Jolliffe; there wasn't much in him beyond his capacity for fun; he was inclined to be fast in a foolish sort of way; a man's man rather than one for whom a woman could feel much respect. Still he was not vicious like the other, for whom my dislike increased every time I saw him.

"Well, Archie Jolliffe fell in love with me and in his impetuous way made no secret of it. I need not say it did not take long for my step-mother to become aware of it, and with the idea that I was encouraging him she became furious. Except that poor Archie was a welcome change from the atmosphere of my home and the hateful attentions of the man who was always being left alone with me, I did not really care for him, and but for Mrs. Morriston's attitude I should have told him it was no use his thinking of me. Considering the sequel, I wish I had done so; but it is too late now for regrets. His love-making gave me a chance of defying my stepmother, and I rather enjoyed baulking her plans to keep Archie and me apart. If I did not encourage him—indeed, I refused him every time he proposed—I did not dismiss him as I ought to have done, and he evidently had an idea that perseverance would win the day. And so, after a fashion, it did.

"Matters reached such a pitch at last that it became plain that I must either consent to marry the man I loathed or leave my home for good. Goaded on by my apparent encouragement of Archie Jolliffe, my stepmother resolved to bring matters to a crisis. She started a terrific row with me one day, my father was brought into it, and I stood up against them both. The upshot was that when the interview was over I went out of the house boiling with indignation and for the time utterly reckless. Chance caught the psychological moment and threw me in the way of Archie Jolliffe. He saw something was wrong and pressed me to tell him what had happened. He was so chivalrous and sympathetic that I was led in my turbulent state of mind to become confidential, the more so when he told me he had known for some time how I was being treated.

"'You must not marry that man,' he said 'It is an outrage for your people to suggest such a thing. He is a big swell and all that, with heaps of money, but any man in town who knows anything will tell you he is quite impossible,'

"I had heard that, and had told my stepmother, but of course it did not suit her to heed me. She cared for nothing beyond the fact that I should be a countess, and said so.

"Archie and I talked together for a long time and with the result that in my longing for protection from the powers against me and my indignation at the way I was being treated I had promised when we parted to marry him, and we had planned to elope together that very night.

"At that time we were living at Haynthorpe Hall—you know it?—about ten miles from here. That evening I slipped out of the house after dinner and met Archie, who was waiting for me at a quiet spot outside the village. His plan was to drive across country to Branchester Junction, where it was not likely we should be noticed or recognized, catch the night train up to town and be married there next morning. You may imagine the state of desperation—utter desperation and recklessness—I was in to have consented to such a thing, but I could see no help for it, and of two evils I seemed to be choosing the least. The future looked hideously vague and dark; still Jolliffe was capable of being transformed into a decent husband, while the other man assuredly was not.

"Archie seemed overjoyed, poor fellow, as I mounted into the dog-cart; he had hardly expected that I should not repent. Once we were fairly off and bowling along the dark road, a sense of relief came to me, and whatever qualms I may have felt soon vanished. However wrong my conduct was I had been driven to it and my father, for whom I was sorry, by taking part against me, deserved to lose me.

"My companion had the tact not to talk much, and I was glad to think he could realize the seriousness of the step he had persuaded me to take. But the little he did say was affectionately sympathetic and, now that the die was cast, it comforted me to indulge hopes of him.

"All went well till we were about three miles from Branchester; then an awful thing happened. Our horse was a fast trotter, and Archie let him have his head, knowing that it would never do for us to miss the train. As we turned a blind corner we came into collision with another dog-cart which we had neither seen nor heard. The force of the impact was so great that our off-wheel was smashed; the cart went over, we were both flung out, and as I fell I realized horribly that my desperate expedient was a failure.

"I was not much hurt, for my fall was broken, and I soon scrambled to my feet. But Archie lay there motionless. The man who was the only occupant of the other dog-cart had pulled into the hedge and alighted. He came up to offer his help, and to express his sorrow at the accident, which he said, doubtless with truth, was not his fault. I dare say you will have guessed that the man was Clement Henshaw. Between us we raised Archie and carried him to the side of the road. He was quite insensible, and breathing heavily.

"'I am afraid he is rather seriously hurt,' the man said sympathetically. 'We ought to get him to Branchester Hospital as soon as possible.'

"I was so overwhelmed by the sudden and terrible end to our adventure that I could think of nothing. By a great piece of luck a belated dray came along on its way to Branchester. Into this, with the driver's help, we lifted poor Archie; and then Henshaw and I drove on in his trap to prepare the hospital authorities for the patient's arrival. The doctor after a cursory examination gave very little hope, and I left the hospital in a most wretched state of mind, feeling more than indirectly responsible for the end of that bright young life. Henshaw arranged for the horse and smashed dogcart to be fetched from the scene of the accident, and then he asked where in the town he should escort me.

"I thanked him and said, a good deal to his surprise, that I was not going to stop in Branchester, but would hire a fly and drive to my destination. I stood, of course, in a hideously false position, and that he very soon began to divine; he would not hear of my getting a fly at that hour of the night, but insisted on driving me in his trap to wherever I wished to go.

"Unhappily I had no idea of the man's character, or I should never have dreamt of accepting his offer; but I was then in no state of mind to judge his nature or question his motives; he had proved himself infinitely kind and resourceful, so in my lonely and agitated condition I consented, little imagining what the dire result to me would be.

"On the drive back to my home I was naturally in a horribly distressed state of mind, and hardly dared think of the future. My companion tactfully refrained from much talking, although I had an idea that his curiosity was greatly excited to learn the explanation of the affair; he put occasionally a leading question which I always evaded, when he took the hint and did not press his inquiries. So far as every one else was concerned there had been no idea of connecting me with poor Archie Jolliffe. The hospital people believed that he had been driving alone, and that I had been in the trap with Henshaw. I dare say they took me for his sister or his wife.

"At last, after one of the most wretched hours I ever spent—and I have had more than my fair share of trouble—we reached Haynthorpe, and on the outskirts of the village I asked Henshaw to set me down. He stopped and looked at me curiously.

"'Can't you trust me to drive you to your home?'" he said insinuatingly.

"I replied that I preferred to get down where we were, and thanked him as warmly as I was able for all his services.

"'You haven't even told me your name,' he protested, 'Mine is Clement Henshaw; I am staying at Flinton for hunting.'

"My answer was that he must not think me ungrateful, but that I would rather not tell him my name. It could be of no consequence to him.

"'I should like at least,' he urged, 'to be allowed to drive over and report how your—friend—or was it your brother?—is getting on.'

"I thanked him, made the best excuse I could for refusing, got down from the trap and hurried off through the dark village street, thankful to get away from those awkward questions.

"But if I thought I had finally got rid of Mr. Clement Henshaw I was, in my ignorance of the man, woefully mistaken."



CHAPTER XXIV

HOW THE STORY ENDED

"When I reached the house luck unexpectedly favoured me. My maid, whom I had been obliged to take, up to a certain point, into my confidence, and who, after the manner of her class, had acquired more than a sympathetic inkling of the way my people had been treating me, was waiting up on the look-out for my return, and quietly let me in. She told me that no one but herself had any idea that I was out of the house; she had led them to believe that I had gone to bed early with a headache, which considering the stress of the past two days was plausible enough. So I got back safely to my room which it had not seemed likely. I should ever enter again, and next morning I could see that my over-night's adventure was quite unsuspected.

"Naturally I anticipated a continuation of my stepmother's attempts to force me into the marriage she had in view, and it rather puzzled me to understand why they seemed to be dropped. The prospective bridegroom did not come to the house, and, stranger still, his name was not mentioned. The explanation was soon forthcoming. I did not see the newspapers just then, in fact I have an idea they were purposely kept away from me; but some people who were calling mentioned a big society-scandal coming on in the Law Courts in which this precious peer was desperately involved. The relief with which I heard the news was unbounded considering all it meant for me, but my joy was turned to bitter grief by the news that Archie Jolliffe after lying unconscious for nearly a week had died of his injury. I had contrived, during the days he lingered, to make secret inquiries as to his condition, and so knew that what would have seemed my heartless absence from his bedside had made no difference to him."

"Poor fellow," Gifford commented.

"It was unspeakably sad," Edith Morriston continued, "but it seemed like fate, seeing how things rearranged themselves afterwards. Certainly if I was to blame for his piteous end, I was to pay the penalty. For no sooner was I out of one trouble than another was ready for me.

"After this long preface, I come to the most unpleasant episode of Henshaw and his persecution.

"On the day I heard of poor Archie's death I had gone out for a walk possessed by a great longing to be alone in my grief. On my way home by a woodland path leading to the Hall grounds, I, to my great annoyance, came upon Clement Henshaw. I can't say I was altogether surprised, for I had caught a glimpse of some one very like him in the village a day or two before. Of that I had thought little, merely taking care that the man did not see me. But now there was no avoiding him, and I had more than a suspicion that he had been lying in wait for me. At the risk of appearing horribly ungrateful I made up my mind on the instant to try to pass him with a bow, but need not say that was utterly futile. He stood directly in my path, and raised his hat.

"'I am sorry to be the bearer of sad news, Miss Morriston,' he said.

"So he had found out my name, assuredly not by accident, and the fact angered me, perhaps unreasonably.

"'I have heard of Mr. Jolliffe's death,' I replied coldly, 'if that is what you have to tell me.'

"'I thought,' he rejoined, with assurance, 'it quite possible you might not have heard so soon.'

"From his manner I began to see that the man was likely to become an annoyance if he were not snubbed, but soon discovered that it was not so easily done. I thanked him coldly enough, and tried to dismiss him, but he insisted on walking with me. What could I do? He seemed determined to force his company upon me and I could not run away. He tried to get out of me how I had come to be driving with Archie that night, and although I evaded his questions it was plain that he had a shrewd inkling of the reason. Not to weary you with a long account of this disagreeable and humiliating affair, I will only say that from that day forward I became subject to a determined system of persecution from Clement Henshaw. He waylaid me on every possible occasion, holding over me a covert threat of the exposure of my escapade, till at last I was absolutely afraid to go outside the house for fear of meeting him."

"He wanted to marry you?" Gifford suggested.

Edith Morriston gave a little shudder. "I suppose so. He was always making love to me, and was quite impervious to snubbing. When, in consequence of my keeping within bounds of the house and garden, he could not see me, he took to writing, and kept me in terror lest one of his letters should fall into my stepmother's hands. I wished afterwards that I had taken a bold line, confessed what had happened, and defied the consequences. I think it was the fear of being disgraced in my brother's eyes on his return which kept me from doing so.

"In the midst of my worry my father fell into a state of bad health and we took him down to the Devonshire coast for change of air. Needless to say Henshaw soon found out our retreat, and to my dismay appeared there. His persecution went on with renewed vigour and I, having less chance there of escaping it, was nearly at my wits' end, when fate curiously enough again intervened. We were caught in a storm on a long country excursion, my stepmother got a severe chill and within a week was dead. We returned to Haynthorpe, my father being now in a very precarious state of health, Henshaw followed us with a pertinacity that was almost devilish. But I now ventured to defy his threats of exposing me; he strenuously denied any such intention and declared himself madly in love with me. I had now taken courage enough to reject him uncompromisingly; I forbade him ever to speak to me again, and, as after that he disappeared from the village, began to flatter myself that I had got rid of him.

"My father grew worse now from day to day; he lingered through the summer and with the chill days of autumn the end came. Dick hurried home and arrived just in time to see him alive. He left a much larger fortune than we had supposed him to possess, and Dick, always fond of sport, was soon in negotiation for this place which had come into the market.

"No sooner had we settled in here than, to my horror, Clement Henshaw began to renew his persecution. He had evidently heard that I had inherited a good share of my father's fortune, and was worth making another effort for. He recommenced to write to me, he came down secretly and waylaid me, and when everything else failed he resorted to threats, not veiled as before, but open and unmistakable. He vowed that if I persisted in refusing to marry him he would take good care that I should never marry any one else. He held, he said, my reputation in his hand; he hoped he should never have to use his power, but I ought to consider the state of his feelings towards me and not goad him to desperate measures. In short he took all the joy out of my life, for I had come from mere dislike simply to loathe the man who could show himself such a dastardly cad. And the worst of it was that I saw no way out of it. Dick is a good fellow and very fond of me, but, although you might not think it, he is almost absurdly proud of the family name and its unsmirched record. And if I had confided in him, and he had horsewhipped Henshaw, what good could that have done? It would simply have infuriated the man, who would have at once made public my escapade, and few people would have given me the credit of its being innocent. Dick had just sunk a large part of his fortune in this place, he had taken over the hounds and was certain of becoming popular. All that would be nullified and upset if this man, Henshaw, chose to let loose his tongue. For how could I even pretend to deny his story? At the very least the truth would mean a hateful reflection on my dead father, and the whole thing would have led to an intolerable scandal. Yet it seemed as though this could be avoided in no other way but by marrying my persecutor, a man whom I had reason to hate and who had shown himself to be such an unchivalrous bully. About this time—that is shortly before the Hunt Ball—rumours had got about the neighbourhood that I was going to marry Lord Painswick. He was certainly paying me a good deal of attention, and I fancy Dick would have liked the match, but I could not bring myself to care for Painswick, and indeed his courtship only added to my other worries.

"But Clement Henshaw heard the rumour and it had naturally the effect of rousing his wretched pursuit of me to greater activity. He vowed with brutal vehemence that I should not marry Painswick, and declared that when our engagement was announced he would tell him the story he had against me. That in itself did not trouble me much since I had no intention of marrying Painswick; still the man's relentless persecution was getting more than I could bear.

"I now come to the night of the Hunt Ball. For some days previously I had seen or heard nothing of Henshaw, and had even begun to hope that something might have happened to make the man abandon his line of conduct. I might have known him better. To my intense annoyance and dismay I saw him come into the ballroom with all the hateful assurance that was so familiar to me. I could not well escape, seeing that I was acting as hostess. For a while he, beyond a formal greeting, let me alone. But I felt what was surely coming, and it was almost a relief when he took an opportunity of asking for a dance.

"He must have seen the hate in my eyes as in my hesitation they met his, for he said with a forced laugh, 'You need not do violence to your feelings by dancing with me, Miss Morriston, if you don't care to, but there is something I must say to you. Let us come out of the crowd to where we shall not be overheard.'

"I had never felt so madly furious with the man as at that moment; and it was with a reckless desire to tell him in strong language my opinion of his tactics, to insult him, if that were possible, to declare that I would die rather than yield to him, that I led the way to the tower. My desire to get out of the crowd was even greater than his, for a mad hope possessed me that in some desperate way I might bring our relations to a final issue.

"We went into the sitting-out room. 'Some one will be coming in here,' he objected. 'Is there a room upstairs where we can talk?'

"'There is a room up there,' I answered, as steadily as my indignation would let me, and unheeding the idea of compromising myself I went up the dark staircase in front of him. Naturally the idea that our stormy interview was to have a witness would have been the last thing to enter my mind; it never occurred to me to make sure no one was already in the room when we entered it.

"You know what happened, Mr. Gifford, so I need not go through that. The man showed himself the cowardly bully that he was. Somehow up there alone with him, as at least I thought, in the dark, my courage gave way, and it was only when the man sought in his vehemence to take hold of me that anger and disgust cast out fear. It was quite by accident that I touched and caught up the chisel lying on the window-sill. As the man's hand sought me it struck the edge of the chisel, and got a wound; that must have been how the blood came upon my dress. He seized my arm, and after a struggle wrenched the implement away. But I never struck him with it, far from giving him his death-blow. The chisel was never in my hand afterwards. When I rushed for the door in a sudden panic, for, knowing that I had hurt him, I believed the man in his rage might be capable of anything, and when in springing after me he stumbled and fell, the chisel must have been held by him edge upwards, and so pierced him to his death."

"That, I am certain now," Gifford said, "is what must have happened."

"And you thought I had stabbed him?" the girl said with a reproachful smile.

"I hardly dare ask you to forgive me for harbouring such a thought," he replied. "Yet had it been true I, who had been a witness of the man's vile conduct, could never have blamed you. If ever an act was justifiable—"

An elongated shadow shot forward on the ground in front of them. Gifford stopped abruptly, and with an involuntary action his companion clutched his arm as both looked up expectantly. Next moment Gervase Henshaw stood before them.



CHAPTER XXV

DEFIANCE

For some moments Henshaw did not speak; indeed, it was probable that the unexpected success of his search for Edith Morriston—for such doubtless was his object—had so disagreeably startled him, that he was unable to pull those sharp wits of his together at once. But the expression which flashed into his eyes, and that came instantaneously, was of so vengeful and threatening a character, that Gifford felt glad he was there to protect the girl from her now enraged persecutor.

"I did not expect to find you here, Miss Morriston."

The words came sharply and wrathfully, when the man had found his glib tongue.

Gifford answered. "Miss Morriston and I have been enjoying the view and the air of the pines."

The commonplace remark naturally, as it was intended, went for nothing. Henshaw affected not to notice it.

"I am glad I have come across you, Miss Morriston," he said, with an evident curbing of his chagrin, "as I have something rather important to say to you."

"I am afraid I cannot hear it now, Mr. Henshaw," the girl returned coldly.

Henshaw's face darkened. "I really must ask you to grant me an interview without delay," he retorted insistently, as though secure in his sense of power over the girl. "I am sure Mr. Gifford will permit—"

"Mr. Gifford will do nothing of the sort," came the bold and rather startling reply from the person alluded to. "As a friend of Miss Morriston's I do not intend to allow you to hold any more private conversations with her."

No doubt with his knowledge of the world and of his own advantage Henshaw put down Gifford's resolute speech to mere bluff. And Gervase Henshaw was too old a legal practitioner to be bluffed. "I do not for a moment admit your right to interfere," he retorted with an assumption of calm superiority. "I am addressing myself to Miss Morriston, who does not, I hope, approve of your somewhat singular manners."

Gifford took a step out of the summerhouse and sternly faced Henshaw. "I am sure Miss Morriston will endorse anything I choose to say to a man who has constituted himself her cowardly persecutor," he said. "Now we don't want to have a dispute in a lady's presence," he added as Henshaw began an angry rejoinder. "You have got, unless you wish very unpleasant consequences to follow, to render an account to me, as Miss Morriston's friend, of your abominable conduct towards her. But not here. You had better come to my room at the hotel at three o'clock this afternoon and hear what I shall have to say. And in the meantime you will address Miss Morriston only at the risk of a horsewhipping."

Henshaw was looking at him steadfastly through eyes that blazed with hate. "I wonder if you quite know whom and what you are trying to champion," he snarled.

"Perfectly," was the cool reply. "A much wronged and cruelly persecuted lady. You had better postpone what you have to say till this afternoon, when we will come to an understanding as to your conduct. Now, as you are on private land, you had better take the nearest way to the public road."

Henshaw looked as though he would have liked to bring the dispute to the issue of a physical encounter, had but the coward in him dared. "I am here by permission," he returned, standing his ground.

"Which has been rescinded by the vile use to which you have chosen to put it," Gifford rejoined. "I have Miss Morriston's authority to treat you as a trespasser, and to order you off her brother's land."

Henshaw fell back a step. "Very well, Mr. Gifford," he returned with an ugly sneer. "You talk with great confidence now, but we shall see. You will be wiser by this time tomorrow."

With that he turned and walked off; Gifford, after watching him for a while, went back to the summer-house.

"I have put things in the right train there," he remarked with a confident laugh. "I hope to be able to tell you this evening that Mr. Henshaw is a thing of the past."

"You are very sanguine," she said, a little doubtfully. "I am afraid you do not know the man."

"I'm afraid I do," he replied. "He is obviously not an easy person to deal with. But I think I see my way. Tell me. He has threatened you in order to induce you to elope with him?"

"Yes. He has found evidence among his brother's correspondence of the hold he had over me and of his persecution. That would afford a sufficient motive for my killing him; and how could I prove that I did not strike the blow?"

"It might be difficult," Gifford answered thoughtfully. "But I may be able to do it. Of course he knows you to be an heiress."

"I am sure of that from something he once let slip. It has been my inheritance which has brought all this trouble upon me, at any rate its persistency."

"Yes. This man must be something of an adventurer, as his brother was. We shall see," Gifford said with a grim touch. "Now, I must not keep you any longer. I am so grateful for the confidence you have given me. May I call later on and tell you the result?"

Her eyes were on him in an almost piteous searching for hope in his resolute face. "Of course," she responded. "I shall be so terribly anxious to know."

Chivalrously avoiding any suggestion of tenderness, he shook hands and went off towards the town.



CHAPTER XXVI

ISSUE JOINED

Punctually at the appointed time Gervase Henshaw was shown into Gifford's room. Kelson had received from his friend a hint of what was afoot and had naturally offered his services to back Gifford up, but they were refused.

"It is very kind of you, Harry," Gifford had said, "and just what one would have expected from you. But, as you shall hear later, this is not a business in which you or any one could usefully intervene. In fact it would be dangerous for me, considering the man I am dealing with, to say what I have to say before a third person."

So Kelson went off to spend the afternoon at the Tredworths'.

When Henshaw came in his expression bore no indication of the terms on which he and Gifford had lately parted. The keen face was unruffled and almost genial; but Gifford was not the man to be deceived by that outward seeming. Henshaw bowed and took the chair the other indicated. There was a short pause as though each waited for the other to begin. In the end it was Gifford who spoke first.

"I should like to come to an understanding with you, Mr. Henshaw, with regard to a very serious annoyance, not to say persecution, to which Miss Morriston has been subjected at your hands." Henshaw drew back his thin lips in a smile. "I have to tell you," Gifford continued, "once and for all that it must cease."

"Miss Morriston authorizes you to tell me that?" The question was put with something like a sneer.

"I should hope it requires no authority," Gifford retorted. "Having cognizance of what has been going on, it is my plain duty—"

"Why yours?" Henshaw interrupted coolly.

"For a very good reason," Gifford replied; "one which I may have to tell you presently."

He saw Henshaw flush and dart a glance of hate at him. It was plain he had misinterpreted the reply. But the exhibition was only momentary.

"Admitting in the meantime your right to interfere," Henshaw said, now with perfect coolness, "allow me to tell you that you are taking a very foolish course."

"I shall be glad to know how."

"The reason is, that if you have any regard, as you suggest, for Miss Morriston, you are going the right way to do her a terrible injury."

Gifford rose and stood by the fire-place. "To come to the point at once without further preliminary fencing," he said quietly, "you mean, I take it, that I am forcing you to denounce her as being guilty of your brother's death."

For an instant Henshaw seemed taken aback by the other's directness. "There can be no doubt, holding the evidence I do, that she was guilty of it," he retorted uncompromisingly.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Henshaw," Gifford objected with decision, "there can be, and is, a very great deal more than a doubt of it."

Henshaw shot a searching glance at the man who spoke so confidently, as though trying to probe what, if anything, was behind his words.

"Perhaps you know then," he returned with his sneering smile, "how otherwise, if the lady had no hand in it, my brother came by his death?"

"I do," was the quiet answer.

"Then," still the smile of sneering incredulity, "it is clearly your duty to make it known."

"Clearly," Gifford assented in a calm tone. "That is why I asked you to come here this afternoon."

Henshaw was looking at him with a sort of malicious curiosity. In spite of his smartness he seemed at a loss to divine what the other was driving at, unless it were a well-studied line of bluff. But that Gifford could have, apart from what Edith Morriston might have told him, any intimate knowledge of the tragedy was inconceivable.

"I shall be glad to hear what you have to say, Mr. Gifford," he responded, in perhaps much greater curiosity than he chose to show.

"Then I have to inform you positively," Gifford answered, "that your brother's fatal wound was the result of a pure accident."

Coming from Edith Morriston's champion, there was nothing surprising in that assertion. Certainly if that were the other's strong suit he could easily beat it. It was therefore in a tone of confidence and relief that he demanded, "You can prove it?"

"I can."

"By Miss Morriston's testimony?"

"Not at all. By my own."

"Your own?" Henshaw's question was put with a curling lip.

"My own," Gifford repeated steadfastly.

"May one ask what you mean by that?"

Henshaw's contemptuous incredulity was by no means diminished even by the other's confident attitude.

Gifford gave a short laugh. "Naturally you do not take my meaning. Obviously you think I am not a competent witness, that I know nothing except by hearsay. You are, extraordinary as it may seem, quite wrong. My testimony would be of nothing but what I myself saw and heard."

"What do you mean?" Henshaw had for a moment seemed to be calculating the probability of this monstrous suggestion being a fact, and had dismissed it with the contempt which showed itself in his question.

"I mean," Gifford replied with quiet assurance, "that I happened to be a witness of the interview in the tower-room between your brother and Miss Morriston, that I was there when he received his death-wound, and that it was I whom the girl Haynes saw descending by a rope from the top window."

Henshaw had started to his feet, his face working with an almost passionate astonishment. "You—you tell me all that," he cried, "and expect me to believe it?"

"I have told you and shall tell you nothing," was the cool reply, "that I am not prepared to state on oath in the witness-box."

For a while Henshaw seemed without the power to reply, dumbfounded, as his active brain tried to realize the probabilities of the declaration. "It seems to me," he said at length in a voice of which he was scarcely master, "that, whether your statement is true or otherwise, you are placing yourself in an uncommonly dangerous position, Mr. Gifford."

"I am aware that I am inviting a certain amount of ugly suspicion," Gifford agreed, "but the truth, which might have remained a mystery, has been forced from me by the necessity of protecting Miss Morriston. Perhaps you had better hear a frank account of the whole story, and the explanation of what I admit you are so far justified in setting down as concocted and wildly improbable."

"I should very much like to hear it," Henshaw returned in a tone which held out no promise of credence.

Thereupon Gifford gave him a terse account of the events and the chance which had led him into the tower and to be a secret witness of what happened there. Remembering that he was addressing the dead man's brother, he recounted the details of the interview without feeling; indeed he threw no more colour into it than if he had been opening a case in court. He simply stated the facts without comment. Henshaw listened to the singular story in an attitude of doggedly unemotional attention. Lawyer-like he restrained all tendency to interrupt the narrative and asked no question as it proceeded. Nevertheless it was clear he was thinking keenly, eager to note any weak points which he could turn to use.

When the recital had come to an end he said coolly—

"Your story is a very extraordinary one, Mr. Gifford; I won't call it, as it seems at first sight, wildly improbable, but it is at any rate an almost incredible coincidence. With your knowledge of the law I need scarcely remind you that the facts as you have just recounted them place you in a rather unenviable position."

"As I have already said," Gifford replied, "my story is calculated to suggest suspicion against me. But I am prepared to risk that consequence."

"In court," Henshaw observed, with a malicious smile, "handled by a counsel who knew his business, your statement could be given a very ugly turn indeed."

"As I have just told you," Gifford returned quietly, "I would take that risk rather than allow Miss Morriston to remain longer under suspicion. As for myself I should have every confidence in the result."

"It is well to be sanguine," Henshaw sneered. "If you have not already done so, are you prepared to repeat your story to the police?"

"Most certainly I am, if necessary," was the prompt answer. "But I do not fancy you will wish me to do so."

Henshaw's look was one of surprise, real or affected. "Indeed? Why so?"

"I will tell you," Gifford replied with a touch of sternness. "Because it would be absolutely against your interest. For one thing it would, short of absolute proof, leave still the shadow of doubt over your brother's death, it would effectually put a stop to your designs on Miss Morriston, which in any case must come to an end, and it would show up your dead brother's character and conduct in a very disreputable light. Now what I have to say to you is this. I know that, following in your brother's footsteps, you have been subjecting Miss Morriston to an amount of very hateful persecution. There may have been a certain excuse for it, at any rate a degree of temptation, but your designs have not been welcome to the lady, and they must forthwith come to an end. Now unless you undertake to cease your attentions to Miss Morriston, in short to put an end at once and for all to this persecution, I shall effectually remove the hold you imagine you have over her by going straight to the police, giving them the real story of what happened in the tower that night and as a natural consequence shall give evidence to that effect at the adjourned inquest. You will know best whether it would be worth your while to force me to do this. I simply state the position."

He waited for Henshaw's answer. The man was plainly cornered and seemed to be divided between a desire to let Gifford go on and place himself in a dangerous situation, and the more expedient course of raising a scandal which would touch him as well as disgrace his dead brother.

"This is a clever piece of bluff, Mr. Gifford," he said at length; "but—"

"It is no bluff at all," Gifford interrupted firmly. "I am merely determined to take the obvious course to save Miss Morriston from something a good deal worse than annoyance. I have no wish to discredit the dead, but I must remind you that the persecution of Miss Morriston by your brother had gone on for a very considerable time, and had latterly developed into an atrocious system of bullying. It is not an occasion for mincing one's expressions, and I must say that in my opinion your own conduct has been very little, if any, better; and that will be the judgment of every decent man if the truth comes out, as come out it shall, unless you agree to my terms before you leave this room."

For a while Henshaw made no reply. He sat thinking strenuously, evidently weighing his chances, estimating the strength of his adversary's position. Now and again he shot a glance, half probing, half sullen, at Gifford, who leaned back against the mantelpiece coolly awaiting his answer. At length he spoke.

"This is a very fine piece of bravado, Mr. Gifford. But I am not such a fool as it pleases you to think me. It is very good of you to explain to me my position in this affair; I am, however, quite capable of seeing that for myself. And you can hardly expect me to look upon your gratuitous advice as disinterested."

The man was talking to gain time; Gifford shrewdly guessed that. "I might be pardoned for supposing you do not altogether realize how you stand," he replied quietly. "But, after all, that is, as you suggest, your affair."

Henshaw forced a smile. "The point of view is everything," he said in a preoccupied tone; "and ours, yours and mine, are diametrically opposed."

"The point of view which perhaps ought most to be considered," Gifford retorted with rising impatience, "is that of the honourable profession to which we both belong. If you are prepared to face the odium, professional and social, of an exposure—"

Henshaw interrupted him with a wave of the hand. "You may apply that to yourself and to your friend, Miss Morriston," he said sharply. "I can take care of myself, thank you."

Gifford shrugged. "Very well, then. There is no more to be said." He crossed the room and took up his hat. "I will go and see Major Freeman at once." At the door he turned, to see with surprise and a certain satisfaction that Henshaw, although he had risen from his chair, seemed in no hurry to move. "You are coming with me," he suggested. "It would be quite in order, I think, for you to be present at my statement—unless you prefer not."

It seemed clear that the rather foxy Gervase Henshaw had really more than suspected a studied game of bluff. But now Gifford's attitude tended to put that out of the question.

"In the circumstances, as your statement will consist mainly of a slander against me and my dead brother," Henshaw replied sullenly, "I prefer to keep out of the business for the present. I fancy," he added with an ugly significance, "that the police will be quite equal to dealing with the situation without any assistance or intervention from me."

Gifford ignored the covert threat. "Very well, then," he said, throwing open the door and standing aside for Henshaw to pass out; "I will go alone. Yes; it will be better."

But Henshaw did not move.

"I don't quite gather," he said in answer to Gifford's glance of inquiry, "exactly what your object is in taking this step."

"I should have thought—" Gifford began.

"Is it," Henshaw proceeded, falling back now to his ordinary lawyer-like tone—"is it merely to checkmate what you are pleased to call my designs upon Miss Morriston?"

"That will be a mere incidental result," Gifford answered, shutting the door and coming back into the room. "My object is to put it, at once and for all, out of your power to hold over Miss Morriston the threat that she is at any moment liable to be accused—by you of all people—of your brother's murder, and so suggest that she is in your power."

"Why do you say by me, of all people?"

"You who profess an affection for her."

"Your word profess scarcely does me justice, Mr. Gifford," Henshaw returned, drawing back his shut lips. "I had, and have, a very sincere affection for Edith Morriston, which, it seems, I am not to be allowed to declare or even have credit for. As a man of the world you can hardly pretend to be ignorant of what a man will do when his happiness is at stake. What he does under such a stress is no guide to his real feelings. But we need not labour that point. My affection, genuine or not, seems to be in no fair way to be requited, and I had already made up my mind to leave it at that. I have merely kept up the game to this point out of curiosity to see how far your—shall we say knight-errantry?—would lead you. I will now relieve you from the necessity of going through an act of Quixotic folly which would assuredly, sooner or later, have unpleasant consequences for you."

So Gifford realized with a thrill of pleasure that he had won. He felt that in much of his speech the man was lying; that no consideration of mere unrequited affection had induced him to abandon his design.

"I am glad to hear you have come to a sensible conclusion," he said as coolly as the sense of triumph would let him. "Whatever happened you could hardly have expected your—plans to succeed."

"I don't know that," Henshaw retorted, with a touch of a beaten man's malice. "Anyhow I have my own ideas on the subject. But looking into the future with my brother's blood between us I think it might have turned out a hideous mistake."

"A safe conjecture," Gifford commented, between indignation and amusement at the cool way the man was now trying to save his face.

"Anyhow there's an end of it," Henshaw said with an air and gesture of half scornfully dismissing the affair. "And so I bid you good afternoon."

As he walked towards the door Gifford intercepted him.

"Not quite so fast, Mr. Henshaw," he said resolutely. "We can't leave the affair like this."

"What do you mean?" Henshaw ejaculated, with a look which was half defiant, half apprehensive.

"You have heard my story," Gifford pursued with steady decisiveness, "and have, I presume, accepted it."

"For what it is worth." The smart of defeat prompted the futile reply.

"That won't do at all," Gifford returned with sternness. "You either accept the account I have just given you, or you do not."

There was something like murder in Henshaw's eyes as he replied, "This bullying attitude is what I might expect from you. To put an end, however, to this most unpleasant interview you may take it that I accept your statement."

"To the absolute exoneration of Miss Morriston?"

"Naturally."

"I must have your assurance in writing."

Henshaw fell back a step and for a moment showed signs of an uncompromising refusal. "You are going a little too far, Mr. Gifford," he said doggedly.

"Not at all," Gifford retorted. "It is imperatively necessary."

"Is it?" Henshaw sneered. "For what purpose?"

"For Miss Morriston's protection."

The sneer deepened. "I should have thought that purpose quite negligible, seeing how valiantly the lady is already protected. But I have no objection," he added in an offhand tone, "as you seem to distrust the lasting power of bluff, to give you an extra safeguard. Indeed I think it just as well, all things considered, that Miss Morriston should have it. Give me a pen and a sheet of paper." Henshaw's manner was now the quintessence of insolence, but Gifford could afford, although it cost him an effort, to ignore it. With the practised pen of a lawyer Henshaw quickly wrote down a short declaration, signing it with a flourish and then flicking it across the table to Gifford. "That should meet the case," he said, leaning back confidently and thrusting his hands into his pockets. Dealing with one who, like himself, was learned in the law he had, to save trouble, written a terse declaration which he knew should be quite acceptable. It simply stated that from certain facts which had come to his knowledge he was quite satisfied that his brother's death had been caused by an accident, and that no one was to blame for it, and he thereby undertook to make no future charge or imputation against any one, in connexion therewith.