nd when she arrived at Riversbrook it was after half-past ten.
She arrived a few minutes too late to prevent the tragedy. She found the
front door open and the electric light burning in the hall. She went up
the staircase and in the library she found Sir Horace, who was lying on
the floor at the point of death. She tried to lift him to a sitting
position, but with a convulsive gasp he died in her arms.

She laid him down and then looked hurriedly around the room with the
object of removing any evidence of how or why the crime had been
committed, her main thought being to save her friend from the shame of a
public scandal. She picked up a revolver which was lying on the floor
near Sir Horace, turned out the lights in the library and in the hall so
that the house was in darkness, and then closed the hall door after her
as she went out. But Mr. Crewe had discovered in some way that Mr.
Holymead had visited Sir Horace that night. Only a week ago Gabrielle had
gone to him and tried to put him off the track, but it was no use.

The wretched woman made a pathetic appeal for her husband's life. She
deplored the sinfulness which had resulted in the tragedy. She took on
herself the blame for it all. She had sent one man to his death, and her
husband stood in peril of a shameful death on the gallows. But it was in
the power of Mabel to save him. On her knees she pleaded for his life;
she pleaded to be saved from the horror of sending her husband to the
gallows. If Mabel's father could make his wishes known he too would
plead for the life of the friend he had betrayed.

The door opened and the parlourmaid entered. Miss Fewbanks stepped
quickly across the room so that she should not witness the distress of
Mrs. Holymead. The servant handed her a card and waited for instructions.
Miss Fewbanks looked at the card in an agony of indecision. Then she made
up her mind firmly.

"Show him into my study," she whispered to the girl.

She returned to her visitor, who was sitting with her face buried in
her hands.

"Mr. Crewe has just motored down," she said. "I will save your husband
if I can."

CHAPTER XXVIII

She was conscious that the revelation that her father had been killed
by Mr. Holymead was a less shock than the revelation that her father
had dishonoured the great friendship of his life by seducing his
friend's wife. Her father had been dead three months, and her grief had
run its course. The shock caused by the disc