sheets still grasped in her hands. In two or three minutes she was fast asleep.

The window was still open, and a bat swept into the room. He flitted round the motionless figure, uttering a thin cry, and again passed out into the starry night. The silvery voices of the nightingales in the copses round Marshely village came faintly across the meadows mingled with the cry of a mouse-hunting screech-owl. Still Bella slept on.

Hour after hour passed, and the night grew darker. The wind died away, the corn-fields ceased to rustle, the nightingales to sing. It became colder, too, as though the breath of winter was freezing the now moist air. The stars yet glittered faintly, and the high-pitched whistle of a steamer could be heard from the distant river, but on the whole, the earth was silent and weirdly gloomy for summer-time. During the small hours there came an ominous hush of expectant dread, which lasted until the twittering birds brought in the dawn.

Bella opened her eyes, to find her room radiant with royal red light. She felt sick and dizzy, for over her stood Mrs. Coppersley, shaking her vigorously by the shoulder. "Bella, Bella! Your father is dead. Murder, murder! Oh, come to the study and see the murder!"

CHAPTER V

A MYSTERIOUS CRIME

"Murder!" The ominous word struck at Bella's heart, in spite of the fact that her dazed brain could scarcely grasp its significance. With unseeing eyes she stared at her terrified aunt. Mrs. Coppersley, in her usual morning dress, simply made, for domestic purposes, fell back from the motionless girl, and gripped the table in the centre of the room. Her face was white, her figure limp; and almost crazy with alarm, she looked twice her age. Nor did the sight of her niece's bewildered gaze reassure her. With a quick indrawn breath of fear, she lurched forward and again shook the girl.

"Bella! Bella! what's come to you? Don't you hear me? Don't you understand, Bella? Jabez is dead! your father has been murdered. He's lying a corpse in his study. And oh—oh—oh!"—Mrs. Coppersley reeled against the table again, and showed signs of violent hysteria.

This spectacle brought back Bella with a rush to the necessities of the moment. She sprang to her feet, with every sense alert and ready to be used. Seizing the ewer from the wash-stand, she dashed the water over the sobbing, terrified woman, then braced herself to consider the situation.

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