committed suicide in this house, and every one believed it was my father. Yet you yourself, less than an hour ago, brought me a letter written by my father yesterday! Suppose I leave Elmdale this instant—suppose, which is impossible, that the present excitement dies down—how can I go through life with such a ghastly secret weighing me down? It would drive me crazy!"

Armathwaite's firm tread was audible as he crossed the hall.

"Anyhow, take my tip, and don't blurt out everything you know the minute you're asked," muttered her counselor, and the door opened.

Armathwaite drew a chair to the window and unfolded a frayed newspaper, laying another on his knees. To all appearance, he had noted neither the sullen discontent in one face nor the white anguish in the other.

"This is a copy of the Nuttonby Gazette, dated June 22nd, two years ago," he said. "It contains what appears to be a verbatim report of the opening day's inquest, which seems to have created a rare stir, judging by the scare heads and space allotted to it. Will it distress you, Miss Ogilvey, if I go through it from beginning to end?"

"Yes, it will distress me very greatly, but I don't see how I can avoid hearing it. If one visits the dentist there is no use in pretending that having a tooth drawn doesn't hurt. Please read every word."

He obeyed without further preamble. It was a disagreeable task, but he did not flinch from it, though well aware that the gruesome details would shock one of his hearers inexpressibly. Divested of the loud-sounding phrases with which a country reporter loves to clothe any incident of a sensational character, the newspaper added nothing to the facts already related by Betty Jackson and Police-constable Leadbitter, except a letter written and signed by the deceased man, in which he declared he had taken his own life because he was suffering from an incurable disease. It was only when the succeeding issue of the Nuttonby Gazette was scanned, with its report of the adjourned inquest, that new light was vouchsafed.

The coroner was a Mr. Hill, a local solicitor; a Dr. Scaife, from Bellerby, who had conducted a post-mortem examination, had excited Mr. Hill's ire by his excessive caution in describing the cause of death.

"I found no symptoms of what is popularly known as 'incurable disease,'" said the doctor. "The brain, heart, liver, lungs, and internal organs generally were in a fairly healthy 

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