and wondered
whether, if she had never seen him, she would have been so angry at
what her father had done. For hours that night she lay sleepless,
trying to think of a plan whereby what seemed to her now as a calamity,
and worse than a calamity, could be avoided.

When she came down the following morning her face was pale and almost
haggard. Although she did not realise it, what Paul Stepaside had said
to her had altered the whole outlook of her life. A heap of letters
lay on the breakfast-table, but they were all for her father. A
servant moved quietly round the room, arranging for their morning meal,
while she stood listlessly looking over the garden. It was now nine
o'clock, and her father always came punctually to the minute.

The clock on the mantelpiece had barely ceased striking when he came
into the room. He kissed her perfunctorily, and then turned to his
letters.

"Nothing important, Mary. Nothing important," he said, with an evident
desire to be cheerful. "I think we're going to have a nice day, too,
although we are so close to Christmas. But it's really too warm for
this time of year."

For several minutes he evidently tried to make conversation, with but
little success. The girl made no response to anything he said, but sat
silently toying with the food that was placed before her.

The meal was nearly at an end when a servant came in bearing a
telegram. The Judge took it from the salver and opened it almost
indifferently, but a second later his eyes were wild with terror, and
his hands trembled like an autumn leaf shaken with the wind.

"My God!" he exclaimed.

"What is it, father?"

He had risen from his seat. He did not speak. He seemed unable to
answer her.

"What is it, father? Is someone ill--dying--what?"

And she snatched the wisp of thin paper from her father's hand.

"Ned murdered," she read. "Found early this morning with a knife in
his heart. Stabbed from the back. Stepaside apprehended for murder.
We're all distracted.--WILSON."

For a moment the words seemed to swim before her eyes. She could not
grasp their purport; and yet, even then, that which filled her heart
with terror was not the fact that Ned Wilson was dead but that Paul
Stepaside was apprehended as his murderer. She knew of the long feud
that had existed between them. She had heard a garbled account of
Paul's attack on Wilson on the night when he had been elected a member
for Brunford. She re