say. It's logic, if it isn't
Scripture. All right. As long as you can stop the evil, without doing
wrong yourself, you're bringing about a good result. So don't fuss.
See?'

'Yes, I see!' Lady Maud smiled. 'But it's your money that does it!'

'That's nothing,' Van Torp said, as if he disliked the subject.

He changed it effectually by speaking of his own present intentions
and explaining to his friend what he meant to do.

His point of view seemed to be that Bamberger was quite mad since his
daughter's death, and had built up a sensational but clumsy case, with
the help of the man Feist, whose evidence, as a confirmed dipsomaniac,
would be all but worthless. It was possible, Van Torp said, that Miss
Bamberger had been killed; in fact, Griggs' evidence alone would
almost prove it. But the chances were a thousand to one that she had
been killed by a maniac. Such murders were not so uncommon as Lady
Maud might think. The police in all countries know how many cases
occur which can be explained only on that theory, and how diabolically
ingenious madmen are in covering their tracks.

Lady Maud believed all he told her, and had perfect faith in his
innocence, but she knew instinctively that he was not telling her all;
and the certainty that he was keeping back something made her nervous.

In due time the other guests came; each in turn met Mr. Van Torp soon
after arriving, if not at the moment when they entered the house; and
they shook hands with him, and almost all knew why he was there, but
those who did not were soon told by the others.

The fact of having been asked to a country house for the express
purpose of being shown by ocular demonstration that something is 'all
right' which has been very generally said or thought to be all wrong,
does not generally contribute to the light-heartedness of such
parties. Moreover, the very young element was hardly represented, and
there was a dearth of those sprightly boys and girls who think it the
acme of delicate wit to shut up an aunt in the ice-box and throw the
billiard-table out of the window. Neither Lady Maud nor her father
liked what Mr. Van Torp called a 'circus'; and besides, the modern
youths and maids who delight in practical jokes were not the people
whose good opinion about the millionaire it was desired to obtain, or
to strengthen, as the case might be. The guests, far from being what
Lady Maud's brothers called a menagerie, were for the most part of the
grave