e felt she might be guilty of a hundred contradictions and
indiscretions, if faced with the basilisk eyes and over-powering
personality of the man she feared. At the very thought of him she
began to tremble all over as though with ague. It was perfectly
absurd, of course, but there it was. Still now, if she chose, she
could face the trying experience as a married woman, as Roger
Clifford's wife. That security somehow promised her a new strength.
Roger's wife! And in a fortnight's time! A different sort of tremor
seized her, a _frisson_ of exquisite joy....

The door opened. Roger came towards her, took her hands again in his,
and looked at her closely. She grew apprehensive of what he had to
tell her.

"What is it? What has happened?"

"Don't be frightened. They have caught Sartorius. They captured him
aboard a fruit-boat in the harbour, about an hour ago. The boat was
under sailing orders, bound for a port in Morocco; they think the
captain was a friend of Sartorius's. Anyway, they surrounded the
doctor in his cabin. He didn't put up any fight--simply looked at
them, blew his nose, and followed them up without a word."

She stared at him blankly, wondering what more he had to say.

"Yes--go on. What then?"

"They handcuffed him, of course, and let him sit between two of them in
the car. He was quite composed, had nothing to say. It was dark
inside the car; they couldn't see him very well. One of the officers
thought he leaned against him pretty heavily. When they got to the
station he didn't get up, didn't move at all."

"What do you mean?"

"He did us a good turn, Esther. He was quite dead--poisoned, beyond
doubt."

"Poisoned! I wonder how he did it?"

"It is amazing, isn't it? It was the stolid calmness of the fellow
that put them off, I suppose. They think he must have taken something
he had ready when he blew his nose."

She looked at him, her pupils dilated, trying to adjust her ideas to
this new development. She felt strangely bewildered.

"It seems so--so stupid! I can't take it in. A clever man like that
... first to run away, then to throw up the sponge..."

"I know, that's the way it strikes me, too; he seemed at the last so
lacking in resource. Still, he was probably like one of those big,
heavy cars that are wonderful on the straight, but can't turn quickly
in a sharp corner. Take one of those two-ton Hispano-Switzers----"

"Or the Juggernaut," she suggested slo