hrough. But that needn't keep the rest of you from
going on to-day as you planned."

"What an awful thing!" exclaimed Aunt Lil. "I will stay too, if the
girls don't mind. Poor fellow! It may be some comfort to him to feel
that he has friends on the spot, standing by him. I've got thousands of
engagements--we all have--but I shall telegraph to everybody. What about
you, Lord Bob?"

"I'll stand by, with you, Lady Mountstuart," said he, his nice though
not very clever face more anxious-looking than I had ever seen it, his
blue, wide-apart eyes watching me rather wistfully. "Dundas and I have
never been intimate, but he's a fine chap, and I've always admired him.
He's sure to come out of this all right."

Poor Lord Robert! I hadn't much thought to give him then; but dimly I
felt that his anxiety was concerned with me even more than with Ivor, of
whom he spoke so kindly, though he had often shown signs of jealousy in
past days.

I felt stunned, and almost dazed. If anyone had spoken to me, I think I
should have been dumb, unable to answer; but nobody did speak, or seem
to think it strange that I had nothing to say.

"I suppose you won't try to do anything until after lunch, will you,
Mountstuart?" Lord Robert went on to ask.

"No, we must eat, and talk things over," said Uncle Eric.

We went into the restaurant, I moving as if I were in a dream. Ivor
accused of murder! What had he done? What could have happened?

But I was soon to know. As soon as we were seated at a table, where the
lovely, fresh flowers seemed a mockery, Aunt Lil began asking questions.

For some reason, Uncle Eric apparently did not like answering. It was
almost as if he had had some kind of previous knowledge of the affair,
of which he didn't wish to speak. But, I suppose, it could not have been
that.

It was Lord Robert who told us nearly everything; and always I was
conscious that he was watching me, wondering if this were a cruel blow
for me, asking himself if he were speaking in a tactful way of one who
had been his rival.

"There was that engagement of Dundas' last night, which he was just
going to keep when we saw him," said Lord Bob, carefully, but clumsily.
"I'm afraid there must have been something fishy about that--I mean,
some trap must have been laid to catch him. And, it seems, he wasn't
supposed to be in Paris--though I don't see what that can have to do
with the plot, if there is one. He was stopping in the hotel under
anothe