of the scene, saw the tall man in a
red cloak--whom you call the Avenger--strangling the girl. By the way,
why do you call him the Avenger?"

"Because," said Helen, slowly, "there was murder in the cruel face of
the woman, and there was a dagger in her hand. She had struck her blow
before he appeared upon the scene. I know this, because it was the flare
of his crimson cloak, as he rushed in, which first caught my eye, in the
firelight, and made me look into the mirror at all. Before that I was
intent on Ronnie. The Avenger seized the woman from behind; I saw his
brown hands on the whiteness of her throat. Grief and horror were on his
face, as he looked over her shoulder, and past the chair, at the
prostrate heap upon the floor."

"Which heap," said Dick, trying to speak lightly, "was our poor Ronnie."

"No," said Helen, gazing straight before her into the fire, "the heap
upon the floor was _not_ Ronnie."

"But--I am positive!--I saw it myself! I saw you kneeling beside it. I
helped to sort it, afterwards. The actual heap on the floor was the
broken chair, Ronnie mixed up with it; and, on top of both, that unholy
Infant, whose precocious receptivity is responsible for the entire
business. I exonerate the Florentine chair; I exonerate poor Ronnie. I
shall always maintain that that confounded 'cello worked the whole show,
out of its own unaided tummy!"

But Helen did not laugh. She did not even smile. "The heap on the floor
was not Ronnie," she repeated firmly, "nor was I kneeling beside it. The
Italian chair had not fallen over. Not a single thing appertaining to
the present, was reflected in the picture as I first saw it. Dick, there
was a conclusion to my vision of which I have never told you."

"Oh, lor!" said Dick. "When I guaranteed the psychic chap that I was
putting him in full possession of every detail!"

"I am sorry, Dick. But until this moment I have never felt able to tell
you. I cannot do so now, unless you are nice."

"I _am_ nice," said Dick, "_very_ nice! Tell me quick."

"Well, as I knelt transfixed, watching--the heap on the floor moved and
arose. It was a slight dark man, with a white face, and a mass of
tumbled black hair. He lifted from off his breast as he got up, a
violoncello. He did not look at the woman, nor at the man in the crimson
cloak; he stood staring, as if petrified with grief and dismay, at his
'cello. Following his eyes, I saw a dark jagged stab, piercing its
right breast, ju