excitement to give him more than the
briefest account of what she had heard and said; but Mutimer cared
little for details. He drew an easy-chair near to the fire and begged
her to rest. As she lay back for a moment with closed eyes, he took her
faint hand and put it to his lips. He had never done so before; when she
glanced at him he averted his face in embarrassment.

He would have persuaded her to go to bed, but she declared that sleep
was impossible; she had much rather sit up with him till news came of
Alice, as it surely must do in course of the night. For Mutimer there
was no resting; he circled continually about the neighbouring streets,
returning to the house every quarter of an hour, always to find Adela in
the same position. Her heart would not fall to its normal beat, and the
vision of those harsh faces would not pass from her mind.

At two o'clock they heard that Alice was found. She had been discovered
several miles from home, lying unconscious in the street, and was now
in a hospital. Mutimer set off at once; he returned with the report that
she was between life and death. It was impossible to remove her.

Adela slept a little between six and eight; her husband took even
shorter rest. When she came down to the sitting-room, he was reading the
morning paper. As she entered he uttered a cry of astonishment and rage.

'Look here!' he exclaimed to her. 'Read that!'

He pointed to an account of the Irish Dairy Company frauds, in which it
was stated that the secretary, known as Delancey, appeared also to have
borne the name of Rodman.

They gazed at each other.

'Then it was Rodman wrote that letter!' Mutimer cried. 'I'll swear to
it. He did it to injure me at the last moment. Why haven't they got him
yet? The police are useless. But they've got Hilary, I see--yes, they've
got Hilary. He was caught at Dover. Ha, ha! He denies everything--says
he didn't even know of the secretary's decamping. The lying scoundrel!
Says he was going to Paris on private business. But they've got him! And
see here again: "The same Rodman is at present wanted by the police on a
charge of bigamy." Wanted! If they weren't incompetent fools they'd have
had him already. Ten to one he's out of England.'

It was a day of tumult for Mutimer. At the hospital he found no
encouragement, but he could only leave Alice in the hands of the
doctors. From the hospital he went to his mother's house; he had not
yet had time to let her know of