ing intervened to prevent my going."

"What was that?"

"That is a private matter. I cannot tell it."

"You acknowledge then that you made an appointment with Sir
Charles at the very hour and place at which he met his death, but
you deny that you kept the appointment."

"That is the truth."

Again and again I cross-questioned her, but I could never get
past that point.

"Mrs. Lyons," said I, as I rose from this long and inconclusive
interview, "you are taking a very great responsibility and
putting yourself in a very false position by not making an
absolutely clean breast of all that you know. If I have to call
in the aid of the police you will find how seriously you are
compromised. If your position is innocent, why did you in the
first instance deny having written to Sir Charles upon that
date?"

"Because I feared that some false conclusion might be drawn from
it and that I might find myself involved in a scandal."

"And why were you so pressing that Sir Charles should destroy
your letter?"

"If you have read the letter you will know."

"I did not say that I had read all the letter."

"You quoted some of it."

"I quoted the postscript. The letter had, as I said, been burned
and it was not all legible. I ask you once again why it was that
you were so pressing that Sir Charles should destroy this letter
which he received on the day of his death."

"The matter is a very private one."

"The more reason why you should avoid a public investigation."

"I will tell you, then. If you have heard anything of my unhappy
history you will know that I made a rash marriage and had reason
to regret it."

"I have heard so much."

"My life has been one incessant persecution from a husband whom I
abhor. The law is upon his side, and every day I am faced by the
possibility that he may force me to live with him. At the time
that I wrote this letter to Sir Charles I had learned that there
was a prospect of my regaining my freedom if certain expenses
could be met. It meant everything to me--peace of mind,
happiness, self-respect--everything. I knew Sir Charles's
generosity, and I thought that if he heard the story from my own
lips he would help me."

"Then how is it that you did not go?"

"Because I received help in the interval from another source."

"Why then, did you not write to Sir Charles and explain this?"

"So I should have done had I not seen his death in the paper next
morning."

The woman's story h