redulously. "There must be some mistake!
There has never been any gunpowder in my possession. I might almost go
so far as to say that I have never seen a gun or a pistol at close
quarters----"

She felt a hand groping towards her, and at last find and cover in a
tight grip her fingers. "You do not fire bombs from a gun or from a
pistol, my dearest." There was a great tenderness in Major Guthrie's
voice.

Even in the midst of her surprise and disarray at the extraordinary
thing she had just heard, Mrs. Guthrie blushed so deeply that Mr.
Reynolds noticed it, and felt rather puzzled. He told himself that she
was a younger woman than he had at first taken her to be.

In a very different tone Major Guthrie next addressed the man he knew to
be sitting opposite to him: "May I ask how and where and when bombs were
found in the Trellis House?" To himself he was saying, with anguished
iteration, "Oh, God, if only I could see! Oh, God, if only I could see!"
But he spoke, if sternly, yet in a quiet, courteous tone, his hand still
clasping closely that of his wife.

"They were found this morning within half an hour, I understand, of your
wedding. And it was only owing to the quickness of a lady named Miss
Forsyth--assisted, I am bound to say, by Mr. Hayley of the Foreign
Office, who is, I believe, a relation of Mrs. Guthrie--that they were
found at all. The man who came to fetch them away did get off scot
free--luckily leaving them, and his motor, behind him."

"The man who came to fetch them away?" The woman sitting opposite to the
speaker repeated the words in a wondering tone--then, very decidedly,
"There has been some extraordinary mistake!" she exclaimed. "I know
every inch of my house, and so I can assure you"--she bent forward a
little in her earnestness and excitement--"I can assure you that it's
quite _impossible_ that there was anything of the sort in the Trellis
House without my knowing it!"

"Did you ever go into your servant's bedroom?" asked Mr. Reynolds
quietly.

Major Guthrie felt the hand he was holding in his suddenly tremble, and
his wife made a nervous movement, as if she wanted to draw it away from
his protecting grasp.

A feeling of terror--of sheer, unreasoning terror--had swept over her.
_Anna?_

"No," she faltered, but her voice was woefully changed. "No, I never had
occasion to go into my old servant's bedroom. But oh, I cannot
believe----" and then she stopped. She had remembered Anna's curious