reporters followed me about all the morning, and outside the house the police had difficulty in preventing a crowd assembling, I refused to express any opinion or describe anything I had witnessed.

At eleven o'clock I received a wire from Sir Bernard at Hove as follows:— "Much shocked at news. Unfortunately very unwell, but shall endeavour to be with you later in the day."

At mid-day I called at the neighbour's house close to Kew Gardens Station, where the widow and her sister had taken refuge. Mrs. Courtenay was utterly broken down, for Ethelwynn had told her the terrible truth that her husband had been murdered, and both women pounced upon me eagerly to ascertain what theory the police now held.

I looked at the woman who had held me so long beneath her spell. Was it possible that one so open-faced and pure could be the author of so dastardly and cowardly a crime? Her face was white and anxious, but the countenance had now reassumed its normal innocence of expression, and in her eyes I saw the genuine love-look of old. She had arranged her hair and dress, and no longer wore the shawl.

"It's terrible—terrible, Ralph," she cried. "Poor Mary! The blow has utterly crushed her."

"I am to blame—it is my own fault!" exclaimed the young widow, hoarsely. "But I had no idea that his end was so near. I tried to be a dutiful wife, but oh—only Ethelwynn knows how hard it was, and how I suffered. His malady made him unbearable, and instead of quarrelling I thought the better plan was to go out and leave him with the nurse. What people have always said, was, alas! too true. Owing to the difference of our ages our marriage was a ghastly failure. And now it has ended in a tragedy."

I responded in words as sympathetic as I could find tongue to utter. Her eyes were red with crying, and her pretty face was swollen and ugly. I knew that she now felt a genuine regret at the loss of her husband, even though her life had been so dull and unhappy.

While she sat in a big armchair bowed in silence, I turned to Ethelwynn and discussed the situation with her. Their friends were most kind, she said. The husband was churchwarden at Kew Church, and his wife was an ardent church worker, hence they had long ago become excellent friends.

"You have your friend, Mr. Jevons, with you, I hear. Nurse has just returned and told me so."

"Yes," I responded. "He is making an independent inquiry.""And 

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