close anything you may know about this awful matter."

"I dare not speak openly," replies the widow, growing even a shade
paler, "because my suspicion is of the barest character, and may be
altogether wrong. Yet there are moments when some hidden instinct within
my breast whispers to me that I am on the right track."

"If so," murmurs Florence, falling upon her knees before her, "do not
hesitate; follow up this instinctive feeling, and who knows but
something may come of it! Dora, do not delay. Soon, soon--if not
already--it may be too late. Alas," she cries, bursting into bitter
tears, "what do I say? Is it not too late even now? What hope can there
be after six long days, and no tidings?"

"I will do what I can, I am resolved," declares Dora, rising abruptly to
her feet. "If too late to do any good, it may not be too late to wring
the truth from him, and bring the murderer to justice."

"From him? From whom--what murderer?" exclaims Florence, in a voice of
horror. "Dora, what are you saying?"

"Never mind. Let me go now; and to-night--this evening let me come to
you here again, and tell you the result of what I am now about to do."

She quits the room as silently as she entered it, and Florence, sinking
back in her chair, gives herself up to the excitement and amazement that
are overpowering her. There is something else, too, in her thoughts that
is puzzling and perplexing her; in all Dora's manner there was nothing
that would lead her to think she loved Sir Adrian: there was fear, and a
desire for revenge in it, but none of the despair of a loving woman who
has lost the man to whom she has given her heart.

Florence is still pondering these things, while Dora, going swiftly
down-stairs, turns into the side hall, glancing into library and rooms
as she goes along, plainly in search of something or some one.

At last her search is successful; in a small room she finds Arthur
Dynecourt apparently reading, as he sits in a large arm-chair, with his
eyes fixed intently upon the book in his hand. Seeing her, he closes the
volume, and, throwing it from him, says carelessly:

"Pshaw--what contemptible trash they write nowadays!"

"How can you sit here calmly reading," exclaims Dora vehemently, "when
we are all so distressed in mind! But I forgot"--with a meaning
glance--"you gain by his death; we do not."

"No, you lose," he retorts coolly. "Though, after all, even had things
been different, I can't say I think you