might together devise some way of preventing harm coming from the
accident that the interview had occurred at such an unfortunate hour. He
felt sure that he would be able to devise such a way. He never blinked
the fact of his extreme ingenuity.

He found her strolling in her garden with the anxious frown which had
awakened his uneasiness, still on her brow. Her face grew brighter at the
sight of him, and presently he had smoothed the frown quite away. Again
he realized that the murder of Lord Loudwater had had a softening effect
on her. Before it they had been much more on equality; now she rather
clung to him. He found it pleasing, much more the natural attitude of a
woman towards a man of his imagination and knowledge of life. He was
properly gracious and protective with her.

The next morning the _Daily Wire_ opened his eyes and confirmed his
apprehensions. The murder of a nobleman is an uncommon occurrence, and
the editor of that paper showed every intention of making the most of it.
The visit of the unknown woman to Lord Loudwater and their quarrel,
treated with the nervous picturesqueness of which Mr. Gregg was so famous
a master, formed the main and interesting part of the article. When he
came to the end of it, Mr. Manley whistled ruefully. He had no difficulty
whatever in picturing to himself the indignant and violent wrath of
Helena, and he could not conceive for a moment that Lord Loudwater had
been able to withstand it. Of course, he would be violent, too, but with
a much less impressive violence.

Lord Loudwater had been lavish in the matter of newspapers; he was a rich
man, and they had been his only reading. Mr. Manley read the report of
the inquest in all the chief London dailies, and found in the _Daily
Planet_ another nervously picturesque article on the visit of the
mysterious woman from the nervously picturesque pen of Mr. Douglas.

Here was certainly a pretty kettle of fish. He could not doubt that the
woman was Helena. It explained Flexen's questioning him whether he had
any knowledge of an entanglement between Lord Loudwater and a woman, and
Flexen's keen desire to find some other firm of lawyers who might have
been called in to deal with such an entanglement. But he could not for a
moment bring himself to believe that there could have ever been any need
for Helena to have recourse to the knife. He could not see Lord
Loudwater resisting her when she became really angry; he must have given
way.