ther, if you don't mind.'

They drove from Baker Street to the Hall, where Alma alighted for a
minute to leave her instrument, and thence to a restaurant not far
away. Alma felt no appetite, but the necessity of supporting her
strength obliged her to choose some suitable refreshment. When their
order had been given, Harvey laid his hand upon an evening newspaper,
just arrived, which the waiter had thrown on to the next table. He
opened it, not with any intention of reading, but because he had no
mind to talk; Alma's name, exhibited in staring letters at the entrance
of the public building, had oppressed him with a sense of degradation;
he felt ignoble, much as a man might feel who had consented to his own
dishonour. As his eyes wandered over the freshly-printed sheet, they
were arrested by a couple of bold headlines: 'Sensational Affair at
Wimbledon--Mysterious Death of a Gentleman'. He read the paragraph, and
turned to Alma with a face of amazement.

'Look there--read that----'

Alma took the paper. She had an instantaneous foreboding of what she
was to see; her heart stood still, and her eyes dazzled, but at length
she read. On the previous evening (said the report), a gentleman
residing at Wimbledon, and well known in fashionable circles, Mr. Cyrus
Redgrave, had met his death under very strange and startling
circumstances. Only a few particulars could as yet be made public; but
it appeared that, about nine o'clock in the evening, a medical man had
been hastily summoned to Mr. Redgrave's house, and found that gentleman
lying dead in a room that opened upon the garden. There was present
another person, a friend of the deceased (name not mentioned), who made
a statement to the effect that, in consequence of a sudden quarrel, he
had struck Mr. Redgrave with his fist, knocking him down, and, as it
proved, killing him on the spot. Up to the present moment no further
details were obtainable, but it was believed that the self-accused
assailant had put himself in communication with the police. There was a
rumour, too, which might or might not have any significance, that Mr.
Redgrave's housekeeper had suddenly left the house and could not be
traced.

'Dead?'

The word fell from her lips involuntarily.

'And who killed him?' said Harvey, just above his breath.

'It isn't known--there's no name----'

'No. But I had a sudden thought. Absurd--impossible----'

As Harvey whispered the words, a waiter drew near with the lu