sar! After all--"

His voice was hoarse. The hand he raised in protest shook.

Saul Arthur Mann scratched his chin reflectively.

"Suppose you saw her," he suggested, and added a little grimly: "I will
see Mr. Cole at the same time."

Frank hesitated.

"I can understand your reluctance," the little man went on, "but there
is too much at stake to allow your finer feelings to stop you. This
matter has got to be prevented at all costs. We are fighting for time.
In a month, possibly less, we may have the whole of the facts in our
hands."

"Have you found out anything about the girl in Camden Town?" asked
Frank.

"She has disappeared completely," replied the other. "Every clew we have
had has led nowhere."

Frank dressed himself with unusual care that afternoon, and, having
previously telephoned and secured the girl's permission to call, he
presented himself to the minute. She was, as usual, cordiality itself.

"I was rather hurt at your not calling before, Frank," she said. "You
have come to congratulate me?"

She looked at him straight in the eyes as she said this.

"You can hardly expect that, May," he said gently, "knowing how much you
are to me and how greatly I wanted you. Honestly, I cannot understand
it, and I can only suppose that you, whom I love better than anything in
the world--and you mean more to me than any other being--share the
suspicion which surrounds me like a poison cloud."

"Yet if I shared that suspicion," she said calmly, "would I let you see
me? No, Frank, I was a child when--you know. It was only a few months
ago, but I believe--indeed I know--it would have been the greatest
mistake I could possibly have made. I should have been a very unhappy
woman, for I have loved Jasper all along."

She said this evenly, without any display of emotion or embarrassment.
Frank, narrating the interview to Saul Arthur Mann, described the
speech as almost mechanical.

"I hope you are going to take it nicely," she went on, "that we are
going to be such good friends as we always were, and that even the
memory of your poor uncle's death and the ghastly trial which followed
and the part that Jasper played will not spoil our friendship."

"But don't you see what it means to me?" he burst forth, and for a
second they looked at one another, and Frank divined her thoughts and
winced.

"I know what you are thinking," he said huskily; "you are thinking of
all the beastly things that were said at the trial