wered.

She seated herself, and began to unpin the travelling veil from her hat.

"So I perceive," she remarked. "He will return?"

"Yes," I admitted, "he will return."

She folded the veil upon her knee and looked across at me thoughtfully.

"What an idiot I have been!" she murmured. "After all, that emerald
necklace might easily have been mine."

"I am not so sure about that," I answered. "I think I know what is in
your mind, but I might remind you that suspicion is one thing and proof
another."

"The motive," she answered, "is the difficult thing, and that is found.
I suppose the police are good for something. They should be able to work
backwards from a certainty."

"Are you," I asked, "going to employ the police? Don't you think that,
for the good of everyone, and even for your husband's own sake, the
thing had better remain where it is?"

She laughed scornfully.

"You would have me let the man go free who shot another in the back
treacherously and without warning?" she exclaimed. "Thank you for your
advice, Arnold Greatson. I have a different purpose in my mind."

I moved my chair and drew a little nearer to her.

"Lady Delahaye--" I began.

"The use of my Christian name," she murmured, "would perhaps make your
persuasions more effective. At any rate, you might try. I have never
forbidden you to use it."

"If you have any regard for me at all, then, Eileen," I said, "you will
think seriously before you take any steps against Monsieur Feurgeres.
Remember that he had, or thought he had, very strong reasons for acting
as he did. Looking at it charitably, your husband's proceedings were
open to very grave misconstruction. There will be a great deal of
unpleasant scandal if the story is raked up again, and Isobel's whole
history will be told in court. How will that suit the Archduchess?"

"Not at all," Lady Delahaye admitted frankly; "but the Archduchess is
not the only person to be considered. You seem to forget that this is no
trifling matter. It is a murderer whom you are shielding, the man who
killed my husband whom you would have me let go free."

"Technically," I admitted, "not actually. Your husband did not die of
his wound. He was in a very bad state of health."

"I cannot recognize the distinction," Lady Delahaye declared coldly. "He
died from shock following it."

"Consider for a moment the position of Monsieur Feurgeres," I pleaded.
"Isobel was the only child of the woman whom he had de