,
to meet me, and break the news to me."

Midwinter paused once more. The attempt to reconcile the conclusion he
had drawn from his wife's conduct with the discovery that Allan was the
man for whose arrival Mr. Bashwood had been waiting was hopeless. The
one present chance of discovering a truer solution of the mystery was
to press the steward on the one available point in which he had laid
himself open to attack. He had positively denied on the previous evening
that he knew anything of Allan's movements, or that he had any interest
in Allan's return to England. Having detected Mr. Bashwood in one lie
told to himself. Midwinter instantly suspected him of telling another
to Allan. He seized the opportunity of sifting the statement about Miss
Milroy on the spot.

"How have you become acquainted with this sad news?" he inquired,
turning suddenly on Mr. Bashwood.

"Through the major, of course," said Allan, before the steward could
answer.

"Who is the doctor who has the care of Miss Milroy?" persisted
Midwinter, still addressing Mr. Bashwood.

For the second time the steward made no reply. For the second time,
Allan answered for him.

"He is a man with a foreign name," said Allan. "He keeps a Sanitarium
near Hampstead. What did you say the place was called, Mr. Bashwood?"

"Fairweather Vale, sir," said the steward, answering his employer, as a
matter of necessity, but answering very unwillingly.

The address of the Sanitarium instantly reminded Midwinter that he had
traced his wife to Fairweather Vale Villas the previous night. He
began to see light through the darkness, dimly, for the first time. The
instinct which comes with emergency, before the slower process of reason
can assert itself, brought him at a leap to the conclusion that Mr.
Bashwood--who had been certainly acting under his wife's influence the
previous day--might be acting again under his wife's influence now.
He persisted in sifting the steward's statement, with the conviction
growing firmer and firmer in his mind that the statement was a lie, and
that his wife was concerned in it.

"Is the major in Norfolk?" he asked, "or is he near his daughter in
London?"

"In Norfolk," said Mr. Bashwood. Having answered Allan's look of
inquiry, instead of Midwinter's spoken question, in those words, he
hesitated, looked Midwinter in the face for the first time, and added,
suddenly: "I object, if you please, to be cross-examined, sir. I know
what I have to