e clear as day. Of course--and he had
suspected her of a flirtation!

"Esther, my own Esther--you splendid, marvellous girl! To think that I
never knew, that you might have died, and I should never have known
what became of you! Do you know what I was thinking? I spent two days
searching for you in every hotel and pension in Cannes..."

"I know," she said softly, her eyes suddenly misty.

"I can't take it in yet, Esther; it's too overwhelming."

He buried his head in the covers beside her. She put her hand upon his
hair and caressed it with a clinging touch that sent a thrill through
him. Like this they remained for long minutes, and the communion was
to him the sweetest he had ever known. Strange that this complete
ecstasy should come to him at the very moment when he was shocked to
the depths of his being by the disclosure of the vile crime perpetrated
in their midst.

After a little while Esther drifted off to sleep once more, leaving him
to face again the problem of those two murderers, as he now knew them
to be, still at large and still under the roof with him. What was to
be done? Would they make any attempt to escape, or would they brazen
it out till the last? He had a strong suspicion that they would both
adopt this latter course. He foresaw a long and difficult trail, a
defence skilfully engineered by Sartorius, whose reputation would stand
him in good stead. In his imagination he pictured a French jury swayed
by the beauty and emotional appeal of Therese. Why, they might easily
win; it was perfectly possible. He had an Englishman's contempt for
French jurisdiction. As for the doctor, he felt sure that that man
would employ every diabolical means in his power to discredit Esther's
statement, to blacken her character; he would impute false motives to
her or make a convincing case against her sanity, perhaps both. The
very notion made him boil with rage. The cold-blooded infamy of the
plot to do away with his father was as nothing compared with the wanton
brutality of the attempt on Esther's life. To think of this fresh and
lovely body, so near to him now that he could feel the throbbing of her
heart, dismembered, defiled in the work of annihilation, filled him
with unspeakable horror. He had to take a firm grip on himself to keep
from forcing his way into the neighbouring room and wreaking personal
vengeance on the author of so bestial an outrage. The man's stolid
calm, which had appeare