“Well, missie? Come to see the fun, I suppose?”

“The fun?” Could the still invisible man have said “the fun”?

Then the lantern was lifted a little, and by its gleaming light she saw a burly figure dressed in a plain chauffeur’s uniform. Slowly he turned his lantern round, and then she became aware that drawn up under an evergreen oak overhanging the banked-up churchyard wall was a huge police motor car.

Again the man spoke, but this time it was in a whisper: “If ye’ll promise not to cry out, or faint, or do summat silly o’ that sort, I’ll get you a good sight of it all——”

“Thank you very much,” she faltered, feeling overwhelmed with shame and confusion.

He went on: “Though ’tis a gruesome sight, sure-lye, for a young gal to want to see? But there! I’ve been young myself, and I can mind when I wanted to see every earthly thing there was to see, ’owever fearsome——”

“I should like to see it,” she whispered back in a trembling voice, “but only if I can do so without being seen by any one who’s there.”

“Trust to me, missie! I’ll make that all right,” he said reassuringly. “They’ll be much too busy over their job to trouble about you or me. You come right through ’ere.”

97He half pushed, half led her through the lych-gate, and turning his lantern toward the ground, slowly preceded her, as they threaded their way between the gray and white gravestones.

97

“I’ve brought a party of six,” he muttered huskily, “and apart from the grave-diggers, and the undertaker’s little lot, there’s the corpse’s doctor, so I understand, as well as the fine gentleman who did ’is poor lady in.”

Jean Bower stayed her steps.

“You mustn’t say that—for Mr. Garlett is innocent of having done any wrong.”

She felt convulsed with pain and anger, though her words were whispered quietly enough.

The man turned round. “Every man and every woman, too,” he muttered huskily, “is hinnocent, as we well knows, until found guilty. But it stands to reason, don’t it, that this kind of thing ain’t done for nothing? ’E ’as got a nerve to be ’ere to-night at all—’e needn’t ’a been.”

A moment later, turning round 

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