the doctor, gravely. "You'd better have the real position from me,
since you're sure to have it sooner or later from somebody else, and
then probably more or less inaccurately given. The wonder to me is that
you've heard nothing about it already, but I suppose the few people
round here, seeing you were rather thick with Thornhill, concluded to
keep their heads shut."

"But, Vine, what _is_ the mystery? What the devil _is_ the mystery?
Let's have it."

He was speaking quickly, excitedly. For the life of him he could not
help it.

"Thornhill is supposed to have murdered his wife," answered Vine.

"Good God!"

Elvesdon had started up in his chair, as if he had suddenly realised the
presence of a pin in the cushion, and then sat back, staring at the
other; and indeed his amazement was little to be wondered at, for to be
suddenly told that a man for whom he had conceived a sincere liking and
regard, and a growing friendship, was a probable murderer, was
disconcerting, to say the least of it.

"`Supposed'? Exactly. But it was never proved against him?" he said,
recovering himself and feeling somewhat relieved. "As, of course it
couldn't have been or he wouldn't be where he is now. What were the
facts?"

"Mrs Thornhill disappeared."

"How and where?"

"`How' is just what nobody knows. `Where'--on their own place, same
place they're living on now."

"What would the motive have been?" Elvesdon had collected himself. He
was vividly interested but was becoming magisterial again.

"Motive? Plenty of that; in fact that's what made things look sultry
against Thornhill. She led him the devil of a life. To put it briefly,
Thornhill's version was that she rushed out of the house one night after
a more than ordinarily violent `breeze,' making all sorts of insane
announcements. He did not follow her immediately, as he said at the
time, partly because he wanted to give her time to come to her senses,
partly because--and here he was injudiciously frank, in that he supplied
motive and turned public opinion against himself--he honestly did not
care what happened to her, so sick was he of the life she had been
leading him. He said nothing about her disappearance at first,
explaining that he expected her back at any minute, in which case he
would have made a fool of himself all about nothing."

"Couldn't he have taken up her spoor?" said Elvesdon.

"Not much. There had been a succession of violent thunder-stor