t from
Marcia to see what you were doing with Macartney," she hesitated on the
name, "and you'd dropped this. I----You know Macartney killed Dudley,
really. Does this mean he killed _Thompson_, too?"

"You can say Macartney's real name," I snapped bitterly. "I've known he
was Dick Hutton ever since last night."

But Paulette only gasped, as if she did not care whether I knew it or
not, "Where--how--did you get these cards?"

I told her, and she gave a queer low moan. "Dudley's dead, and I'm past
crying." Her voice never rose when she was moved; it went down, to D
below the line on a violin. "I'm past everything, but wishing I was
dead, too, for I'm the reason that brought Dick Hutton here as
Macartney. Oh, you should have let me meet him that night! I wasn't only
going to meet him; I meant to go away with him before morning. It would
have been too late for poor, innocent old Thompson, but it would have
saved the four mill men--and Dudley!" She had said she was past crying,
but her voice thrilled through me worse than tears; and it might have
thrilled Marcia in her room across the passage, if I'd remembered
Marcia. "God knows Dudley was good to me--but it's no use talking of
that now. What have you done with Macart--with Dick Hutton--that you
said you had him safe for now?"

"Knocked him out; and tied him up with the clothesline, in the living
room--till I can take him out to Caraquet to be hanged!"

"You ought to have killed him," Paulette answered very slowly. "I would
have, when we found Dudley, only he'd taken my gun. At least, I believe
he had: he said I'd lost it. And I'm afraid, without it--while Dick
Hutton's alive!"

I looked at her ghastly face and behaved like a fool for the hundredth
time in this history; for I shoved my own gun into her hand and told her
to keep it, that I'd get another. I would have caught her in my arms if
it had not been for remembering Dudley, who was dead because the two of
us had held our tongues to him. "Look here," I said irrelevantly. "D'ye
know Marcia thinks Macartney wants to marry her?"

"He doesn't want to marry any one--except me," Paulette retorted
scornfully; and once more I should have remembered Marcia across the
passage, only I didn't. "He's made love to Marcia, of course, for a
blind, like he did everything else. If we could make her realize that
and that he killed Dudley as surely as if he'd lifted his own hand to
him----"

But I cut her off. "By gad, Paulette,