ite in his rights to speak to me as
he had done, and I was not offended. But I must say I think I had the
best of the interview. And it left me with the strong impression that he
knew as well as I did that 'his friend Gideon' would in no circumstances
venture to bring a libel action against any one in this matter.

I believed that the young clergyman suspected his friend himself, and was
trying in vain to avert from him the Nemesis that his crime deserved.

Clare said to me when I rejoined her. 'What did Mr. Juke want to speak to
you about, mother?'

'Nothing of any importance, dear,' I told her.

She looked at me in the rather strange, troubled, frowning way she has
now sometimes.

'Oh, do let's go home, mother,' she said suddenly. 'I'm so tired. And I
don't believe they're really starving a bit, and I don't care if they
are. I do hate bazaars.'

Clare used once to be quite fond of them. But she seemed to hate so many
things now, poor child.

I took her home, and that evening I told Percy about my interview
with Mr. Juke.

'A libel action,' said Percy, 'would be excellent. The very thing. But if
he's guilty, he won't bring one.'

'Anyhow,' I said, 'I feel it is our duty not to let the affair drop. We
owe it to poor dear Oliver. Even now he may be looking down on us, unable
to rest in perfect peace till he is avenged.'

'He may, he may, my dear,' said Percy, nodding his head. 'Never know, do
you. Never know anything at all.... On the other hand, he may have lost
his own balance, as they decided at the inquest, and tumbled downstairs
on to his head. Nasty stairs; very nasty stairs. Anyhow, if Gideon didn't
shove him, he's nothing to be afraid of in our talk, and if he did he'll
have to face the music. Troublesome fellow, anyhow. That paper of his
gets worse every week. It ought to be muzzled.'

I couldn't help wondering how it would affect the _Weekly Fact_ if its
editor were to be arrested on a charge of wilful murder.

PART IV:

TOLD BY KATHERINE VARICK

A BRANCH OF STUDY

1

People are very odd, unreliable, and irregular in their actions and
reactions. You can't count on them as you can on chemicals. I suppose
that merely means that one doesn't know them so well. They are far harder
to know; there is a queer element of muddle about them that baffles one.
You never know when greediness--the main element in most of us--will stop
working, checked by something else, some finer, quite dif