n.

'Do you think it's really to be war this time?' he asked, stopping
beside the table. 'Because if it is, I'll see a lawyer before I go to
Derbyshire.'

Lady Maud looked up with a bright smile. Clearly she had been thinking
of something compared with which the divorce court was a delightful
contrast.

'I don't know,' she answered. 'It must come sooner or later, because
he wants to be free to marry that woman, and as he has not the courage
to cut my throat, he must divorce me--if he can!'

'I've sometimes thought he might take the shorter way,' said Van Torp.

'He?' Lady Maud almost laughed, but her companion looked grave.

'There's a thing called homicidal mania,' he said. 'Didn't he shoot a
boy in Russia a year ago?'

'A young man--one of the beaters. But that was an accident.'

'I'm not so sure. How about that poor dog at the Theobalds' last
September?'

'He thought the creature was mad,' Lady Maud explained.

'He knows as well as you do that there's no rabies in the British
Isles,' objected Mr. Van Torp. 'Count Leven never liked that dog for
some reason, and he shot him the first time he got a chance. He's
always killing things. Some day he'll kill you, I'm afraid.'

'I don't think so,' answered the lady carelessly. 'If he does, I hope
he'll do it neatly! I should hate to be maimed or mangled.'

'Do you know it makes me uncomfortable to hear you talk like that? I
wish you wouldn't! You can't deny that your husband's half a lunatic,
anyway. He was behaving like one here only a quarter of an hour ago,
and it's no use denying it.'

'But I'm not denying anything!'

'No, I know you're not,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'If you don't know how
crazy he is, I don't suppose any one else does. But your nerves are
better than mine, as I told you. The idea of killing anything makes
me uncomfortable, and when it comes to thinking that he really might
murder you some day--well, I can't stand it, that's all! If I didn't
know that you lock your door at night I shouldn't sleep, sometimes.
You do lock it, always, don't you?'

'Oh yes!'

'Be sure you do to-night. I wonder whether he is in earnest about the
divorce this time, or whether the whole scene was just bluff, to get
my money.'

'I don't know,' answered Lady Maud, rising. 'He needs money, I
believe, but I'm not sure that he would try to get it just in that
way.'

'Too bad? Even for him?'

'Oh dear, no! Too simple! He's a tortuous person.'

'He tried to pocket