murderer, though it may be hard to connect it with the conditions
of the murder. It might conceivably have been so reduced by some
property in the water and soil, for decomposition varies vastly with
these things. I should not dismiss my strong prima facie case against
the likely person because of these difficulties. But here we have
something entirely different. That the bones themselves should remain
dry in a well full of water, or a well that yesterday was full of
water--that brings us to the edge of something beyond which we can make
no guess. There is a new factor, enormous and quite unknown. While we
can't fit together such prodigious facts, we can't fit together a case
against Treherne or against anybody. No; there is only one thing to be
done now. Since we can't accuse Treherne, we must appeal to him. We
must put the case against him frankly before him, and trust he has an
explanation--and will give it. I suggest we go back and do it now."

Paynter, beginning to follow, hesitated a moment, and then said:
"Forgive me for a kind of liberty; as you say, you are an older friend
of the family. I entirely agree with your suggestion, but before you act
on your present suspicions, do you know, I think Miss Vane ought to be
warned a little? I rather fear all this will be a new shock to her."

"Very well," said Ashe, after looking at him steadily for an instant.
"Let us go across to her first."

From the opening of the wood they could see Barbara Vane writing at the
garden table, which was littered with correspondence, and the butler
with his yellow face waiting behind her chair. As the lengths of grass
lessened between them, and the little group at the table grew larger and
clearer in the sunlight, Paynter had a painful sense of being part of an
embassy of doom. It sharpened when the girl looked up from the table and
smiled on seeing them.

"I should like to speak to you rather particularly if I may," said the
lawyer, with a touch of authority in his respect; and when the butler
was dismissed he laid open the whole matter before her, speaking
sympathetically, but leaving out nothing, from the strange escape of the
poet from the wood to the last detail of the dry bones out of the well.
No fault could be found with any one of his tones or phrases, and yet
Cyprian, tingling in every nerve with the fine delicacy of his nation
about the other sex, felt as if she were faced with an inquisitor. He
stood about uneasily, watch