uld be out of the way for a
season, and the girl, Lola, would be left. A month later he married
her, and four months after that received a letter from his brother
containing messages to Mrs. Martin, "from her loving husband, Charlie,"
who hoped before long to have the pleasure of seeing her again.

Inquiries through the English Consul in Rotterdam proved that the
threat was no mere bluff. The marriage had been legal and binding.

What happened on the night of the murder, was very much as my friend
had reconstructed it. Ellenby, reaching the office at his usual time
the next morning, had found Hepworth waiting for him. There he had
remained in hiding until one morning, with dyed hair and a slight
moustache, he had ventured forth.

Had the man's death been brought about by any other means, Ellenby
would have counselled his coming forward and facing his trial, as he
himself was anxious to do; but, viewed in conjunction with the relief
the man's death must have been to both of them, that loaded revolver
was too suggestive of premeditation. The isolation of the house, that
conveniently near pond, would look as if thought of beforehand. Even
if pleading extreme provocation, Michael escaped the rope, a long term
of penal servitude would be inevitable.

Nor was it certain that even then the woman would go free. The
murdered man would still, by a strange freak, be her husband; the
murderer--in the eye of the law--her lover.

Her passionate will had prevailed. Young Hepworth had sailed for
America. There he had no difficulty in obtaining employment--of
course, under another name--in an architects office; and later had set
up for himself. Since the night of the murder they had not seen each
other till some three weeks ago.

* * *

I never saw the woman again. My friend, I believe, called on her.
Hepworth had already returned to America, and my friend had succeeded
in obtaining for her some sort of a police permit that practically left
her free.

Sometimes of an evening I find myself passing through the street. And
always I have the feeling of having blundered into an empty
theatre--where the play is ended.

HIS EVENING OUT.

The evidence of the park-keeper, David Bristow, of Gilder Street,
Camden Town, is as follows:

I was on duty in St. James's Park on Thursday evening, my sphere
extending from the Mall to the northern shore of the ornamental water
east of the