"Thank God!"

Al'mah's face was anxious. "I don't know what you are going to say to
him, or why you have come," she said, "but--"

"I have come to congratulate him on his recovery."

"I understand. I want to say some things to you. You should know them
before you see him. There is the matter of Adrian Fellowes."

"What about Adrian Fellowes?" Stafford asked evenly, yet he felt his
heart give a bound and his brain throb.

"Does it matter to you now? At the inquest you were--concerned."

"I am more concerned now," he rejoined huskily.

He suddenly held out a hand to her with a smile of rare friendliness.
There came over him again the feeling he had at the hospital when they
talked together last, that whatever might come of all the tragedy and
sorrow around them they two must face irretrievable loss.

She hesitated a moment, and then as she took his outstretched hand she
said, "Yes, I will take it while I can."

Her eyes went slowly round the room as though looking for
something--some point where they might rest and gather courage maybe,
then they steadied to his firmly.

"You knew Adrian Fellowes did not die a natural death--I saw that at
the inquest."

"Yes, I knew."

"It was a poisoned needle."

"I know. I found the needle."

"Ah! I threw it down afterwards. I forgot about it."

Slowly the colour left Stafford's face, as the light of revelation
broke in upon his brain. Why had he never suspected her? His brain was
buzzing with sounds which came from inner voices--voices of old
thoughts and imaginings, like little beings in a dark forest hovering
on the march of the discoverer. She was speaking, but her voice seemed
to come through a clouded medium from a great distance to him.

"He had hurt me more than any other--than my husband or her. I did it.
I would do it again.... I had been good to him.... I had suffered, I
wanted something for all I had lost, and he was ..."

Her voice trailed away into nothing, then rose again presently. "I am
not sorry. Perhaps you wonder at that. But no, I do not hate myself for
it--only for all that went before it. I will pay, if I have to pay, in
my own way.... Thousands of women die who are killed by hands that
carry no weapon. They die of misery and shame and regret.... This one
man died because ..."

He did not hear, or if he heard he did not realize what she was saying
now. One thought was ringing through his mind like bells pealing. The
gulf of horrible suspi