ace, screening from him the anguished mirrors of her eyes.

"Nigel! My poor, poor Nigel!"

"Little 'Toinette!"

"Oh, Nigel--it seems impossible--utterly! That you should be thought to
have killed Dacre. You of all people! Poor, peace-loving Nigel! Something
must be done, dearest; something _shall_ be done! You shall not suffer
so, for someone else's sin--you shall not!"

He smiled at her wanly, and told her how beautiful she was. It was
useless to explain to her the utter futility of it all. There was the
revolver and there the bullet. The weapon was his--of the bullet he could
say nothing. He had only told the truth--and they had not believed him.

"Yes see, dear," he said, patiently, "they do not believe me. They say I
killed him, and Borkins--lying devil that he is--has told them a story of
how the thing was done; sworn, in fact, that he saw it all from the
kitchen window, saw Wynne lying in the garden path, dying, after I fired
at him. Of course the thing's an outrageous lie, but--they're acting upon
it."

"_Nigel!_ How dared he?"

"Who? Borkins? That kind of a devil dares anything.... How's your uncle,
dear? He has heard, of course?"

Her face brightened, her eyes were suddenly moist. She put her hands upon
his shoulders and tilted her chin so that she could see his eyes.

"Uncle Gustave told me to tell you that he does not believe a word of
it, dearest!" she said, softly. "And he is going to make investigations
himself. He is so unhappy, so terribly unhappy over it all. Such a
tangled web as it is, such a wicked, wicked plot they have woven about
you! Oh, Nigel dearest--_why_ did you not tell me that they were
detectives, these friends of yours who were coming to visit? If you
had only said--"

He held her a moment, and then, leaning forward, kissed her gently upon
the forehead.

"What then, _p'tite_?"

"I would have made you send them away--I would! I would!" she cried,
vehemently. "They should not have come--not if I had wired to them
myself! Something told me that day, after you were gone, that a dreadful
thing would happen. I was frightened for you--frightened! And I could not
tell why! I kept laughing at myself, trying to tease myself out of it, as
though it were simply--what you call it?--the 'blues'. And now--this!"

He nodded.

"And now--this," he said, grimly, and laughed.

Bennett, hand upon watch, turned apologetically at this juncture.

"Sorry, Sir Nigel," he said, "but time's up. T