he two regarded each other in silence for a few moments. A party of
guests who had been bathing came up the steps and seated themselves,
with much chattering, at a table near them. The waiter approached. Mr.
Cupples rose, and, taking Trent's arm, led him to a long tennis-lawn at
the side of the hotel.

'I have a reason for telling you all this,' began Mr. Cupples as they
paced slowly up and down.

'Trust you for that,' rejoined Trent, carefully filling his pipe again.
He lit it, smoked a little, and then said, 'I'll try and guess what your
reason is, if you like.'

Mr. Cupples's face of solemnity relaxed into a slight smile. He said
nothing.

'You thought it possible,' said Trent meditatively--'may I say you
thought it practically certain?--that I should find out for myself that
there had been something deeper than a mere conjugal tiff between the
Mandersons. You thought that my unwholesome imagination would begin at
once to play with the idea of Mrs. Manderson having something to do with
the crime. Rather than that I should lose myself in barren speculations
about this, you decided to tell me exactly how matters stood, and
incidentally to impress upon me, who know how excellent your judgement
is, your opinion of your niece. Is that about right?'

'It is perfectly right. Listen to me, my dear fellow,' said Mr. Cupples
earnestly, laying his hand on the other's arm. 'I am going to be very
frank. I am extremely glad that Manderson is dead. I believe him to have
done nothing but harm in the world as an economic factor. I know that he
was making a desert of the life of one who was like my own child to me.
But I am under an intolerable dread of Mabel being involved in suspicion
with regard to the murder. It is horrible to me to think of her delicacy
and goodness being in contact, if only for a time, with the brutalities
of the law. She is not fitted for it. It would mark her deeply. Many
young women of twenty-six in these days could face such an ordeal, I
suppose. I have observed a sort of imitative hardness about the products
of the higher education of women today which would carry them through
anything, perhaps.

I am not prepared to say it is a bad thing in the conditions of feminine
life prevailing at present. Mabel, however, is not like that. She is as
unlike that as she is unlike the simpering misses that used to surround
me as a child. She has plenty of brains; she is full of character; her
mind and her tastes a