"

George stared at him. He had never liked Soames; he now held him
responsible for Bosinney's death. Soames had done for him--done for him
by that act of property that had sent the Buccaneer to run amok that
fatal afternoon.

'The poor fellow,' he was thinking, 'was so cracked with jealousy, so
cracked for his vengeance, that he heard nothing of the omnibus in that
infernal fog.'

Soames had done for him! And this judgment was in George's eyes.

"They talk of suicide here," he said at last. "That cat won't jump."

Soames shook his head. "An accident," he muttered.

Clenching his fist on the paper, George crammed it into his pocket. He
could not resist a parting shot.

"H'mm! All flourishing at home? Any little Soameses yet?"

With a face as white as the steps of Jobson's, and a lip raised as if
snarling, Soames brushed past him and was gone....

On reaching home, and entering the little lighted hall with his
latchkey, the first thing that caught his eye was his wife's
gold-mounted umbrella lying on the rug chest. Flinging off his fur coat,
he hurried to the drawing-room.

The curtains were drawn for the night, a bright fire of cedar-logs
burned in the grate, and by its light he saw Irene sitting in her usual
corner on the sofa. He shut the door softly, and went towards her. She
did not move, and did not seem to see him.

"So you've come back?" he said. "Why are you sitting here in the dark?"

Then he caught sight of her face, so white and motionless that it seemed
as though the blood must have stopped flowing in her veins; and her
eyes, that looked enormous, like the great, wide, startled brown eyes of
an owl.

Huddled in her grey fur against the sofa cushions, she had a strange
resemblance to a captive owl, bunched fir its soft feathers against the
wires of a cage. The supple erectness of her figure was gone, as though
she had been broken by cruel exercise; as though there were no longer
any reason for being beautiful, and supple, and erect.

"So you've come back," he repeated.

She never looked up, and never spoke, the firelight playing over her
motionless figure.

Suddenly she tried to rise, but he prevented her; it was then that he
understood.

She had come back like an animal wounded to death, not knowing where to
turn, not knowing what she was doing. The sight of her figure, huddled
in the fur, was enough.

He knew then for certain that Bosinney had been her lover; knew that she
had seen t