ou are, not unnaturally, overlooking some of the circumstances that
affect Miss Bellingham; but I don't suppose she has failed to grasp
their meaning. Do you realize what her position really is? I mean
with regard to her uncle's disappearance?"

"I don't think I quite understand you."

"Well, there is no use in blinking the facts," said Thorndyke. "The
position is this: if John Bellingham ever went to his brother's house
at Woodford, it is nearly certain that he went there after his visit to
Hurst. Mind, I say '_if_ he went'; I don't say that I believe he did.
But it is stated that he appears to have gone there; and if he did go,
he was never seen alive afterward. Now, he did not go in at the front
door. No one saw him enter the house. But there was a back gate,
which John Bellingham knew, and which had a bell which rang in the
library. And you will remember that, when Hurst and Jellicoe called,
Mr. Bellingham had only just come in. Previous to that time Miss
Bellingham had been alone in the library; that is to say, she was alone
in the library at the very time when John Bellingham is said to have
made his visit. That is the position, Berkeley. Nothing pointed has
been said up to the present. But, sooner or later, if John Bellingham
is not found, dead or alive, the question will be opened. Then it is
certain that Hurst, in self-defense, will make the most of any facts
that may transfer suspicion from him to some one else. And that some
one else will be Miss Bellingham."

I sat for some moments literally paralyzed with horror. Then my dismay
gave place to indignation. "But damn it!" I exclaimed, starting up--"I
beg your pardon--but could anyone have the infernal audacity to
insinuate that that gentle, refined lady murdered her uncle?"

"That is what will be hinted, if not plainly asserted; and she knows
it. And that being so, is it difficult to understand why she should
refuse to allow you to be publicly associated with her? To run the
risk of dragging your honorable name into the sordid transactions of
the police-court or the Old Bailey? To invest it, perhaps, with a
dreadful notoriety?"

"Oh, don't! for God's sake! It is too horrible! Not that I would care
for myself. I would be proud to share her martyrdom of ignominy, if it
had to be; but it is the sacrilege, the blasphemy of even thinking of
her in such terms that enrages me."

"Yes," said Thorndyke; "I understand and sympathize with you.