passage. Although the lights were out, she was still able to make out dimly that a figure, but whether of a man or a woman she could not be sure, was moving rapidly along the passage, to vanish round the corner.

"I wonder who that was?"

She hesitated, returned into her room, and shut the door.

"It might have been anyone. It certainly might not be any business of mine; people can move about the house at any hour they please without consulting me. What was that? It sounded as if someone was calling. There it is again. And there is someone running past my door again. I'm going to see what this means."

Reopening the door, she returned into the passage.

"There's someone running down the stairs as if in a very great hurry. What's that? That's a queer noise. Someone calling again; someone calling for help. There's something queer going on downstairs. Someone is quarrelling. I'm going to find out what it is. I don't care if it is no business of mine; people shouldn't make a noise like that at this time of night. It's everybody's business when they do."

She went a few steps down the darkened passage. When she got out of range of the electric light shining through her open door, it was not easy to find her way; she had to touch the wall with her outstretched fingers and feel it.

"I ought to have brought some matches, or something; the place is as dark as pitch. Shall I go back and fetch them? Whatever was that? There's a light downstairs; someone is still up. That's a man's voice. I seem to know it. Whose can it be? I know it quite well. And that's another man's voice. They're quarrelling. I believe they're fighting. What are they doing? They're making noise enough. Surely, I'm not the only person in the place who hears them--a noise like that; it sounds as if they were fighting like two mad dogs."She had reached what she realised to be the head of the great staircase. A faint light streamed in through the stained-glass window. She hesitated; she might have been frightened by the noise that was going on below. A strange sound was coming through the darkness, as if furniture was being upset in all directions by persons who were chasing each other round the room; then—surely they were blows. Then a voice exclaimed, in a tone which suggested that the speaker, stricken with sudden, dreadful fear, was fighting for his life. The words which, in his agony, he uttered were destined to keep ringing in her ears: "Beaton! My God!" The sound of 

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