dregs, which she had not locked up, in spite of her saying so to Mrs. Coppersley. Undoubtedly, the tea tasted bitter, and she resolved to have it analysed so as to prove to herself the fact of the drugging. She knew perfectly well that her father had attended to the tea himself, evidently to render her helpless in case she meditated flight with Cyril. And in dong so, he had indirectly brought about his own death, for had she been awake she could have descended from the window to be present at the interview which had ended so fatally. And at this point—while she was locking up the cup in a convenient cupboard—Bella became aware that she was thinking as though her lover were actually guilty of the deed.

Of course he could not be, she decided desperately, even though things looked black against him. Lister, honest and frank, would not murder an old man in so treacherous a manner, however he might be goaded into doing so. And yet she had assuredly seen him enter the house. If she could only have seen him depart; but the drug had prevented that welcome sight. Pence might have struck the blow, but Pence had no reason to do so, and in fact had every inducement to keep Huxham alive. Bella could not read the riddle of the murder. All she knew was that it would be necessary for her to hold her tongue about Lister's unexpected visit to the Solitary Farm.

"But I shall never be able to marry him after this," she wailed.

CHAPTER VI

THE INQUEST

Tunks lost no time in delivering his gruesome message and in spreading the news of the death. While the village policeman telegraphed to his superior officer at Pierside, the handy-man of the late Captain Huxham adopted the public-house as a kind of St. Paul's Cross, whence to promulgate the grim intelligence. Here he passed a happy and exciting hour detailing all that had happened, to an awe-stricken crowd, members of which supplied him with free drinks. The marsh-folk were a dull, peaceful, law-abiding people, and it was rarely that crimes were committed in the district. Hence the news of the murder caused a tremendous sensation.

Captain Jabez Huxham was well known, and his eccentricity in the matter of planting Bleacres with yearly corn had been much commented upon. In Napoleonic times the fertile marsh farms had been golden with grain, but of late years, owing to Russian and American competition, little had been sown. Huxham, as the rustics argued, could not have got even moderate prices for its crops, so it puzzled one and all why he 

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