latticework and saw you sitting there at supper."

She smiled weakly.

"It must have been rather a shock to him," she said. "He has been
convinced for the last six months that I murdered Wenham, or got rid of
him by some means or other. Help me up."

She staggered to her feet. Tavernake assisted her to an easy chair. Then
Pritchard came in.

"He is quite safe," he announced, "sitting on the edge of the bath
playing with a doll."

She shivered.

"What is he doing with it?" she asked.

"Showing me exactly, with a shawl pin, where he meant to have stabbed
you," Pritchard answered, drily. "Now, my dear lady," he continued, "it
seems to me that I have done you one injustice, at any rate. I certainly
thought you'd helped to relieve the world of that young person. Where
did he come from? Perhaps you can tell me that."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I suppose I may as well," she said. "Listen, you have seen what he was
like to-night, but you don't know what it was to live with him. It was
Hell!"--she sobbed--"absolute Hell! He drank, he took drugs, it was
all his servant could do to force him even to make his toilet. It was
impossible. It was crushing the life out of me."

"Go on," Pritchard directed.

"There isn't much more to tell," she continued. "I found an old
farmhouse--the loneliest spot in Cornwall. We moved there and I left
him--with Mathers. I promised Mathers that he should have twenty pounds
a week for every week he kept his master away from me. He has kept him
away for seven months."

"What about that story of yours--about his having gone in swimming?"
Pritchard asked.

"I wanted people to believe that he was dead," she declared defiantly.
"I was afraid that if you or his relations found him, I should have to
live with him or give up the money."

Pritchard nodded.

"And to-night you thought--"

"I thought he was his brother Jerry," she went on. "The likeness was
always amazing, you know that. I was told that Jerry was in town. I felt
nervous, somehow, and wired to Mathers. I had his reply only last night.
He wired that Wenham was quite safe and contented, not even restless."

"That telegram was sent by Wenham himself," Pritchard remarked. "I think
you had better hear what he has to say."

She shrank back.

"No. I couldn't bear the sight of him again!"

"I think you had better," Pritchard insisted. "I can assure you that he
is quite harmless. I will guarantee that."

He left the room. S