Ailsa.

"Did he write no note to Lady Katharine then--send her no message, Miss
Lorne?"

"No. I see that surprises you, Mr. Cleek, as, to be perfectly frank with
you, it surprises me. I can't make it out. I know that his whole life is
bound up in Kathie, as hers is bound up in him. I know that it nearly
drove him frantic when he was told their engagement would have to come
to an end; so one would naturally think that when there is a rumour that
the man who came between them is dead----And he _must_ have heard by
this time."

"Miss Lorne, let me tell you something," said Cleek gravely. "Geoffrey
Clavering does know of the murder. He has known of it since twelve
o'clock last night, to my certain knowledge."

"Mr. Cleek! And yet he has made no move to communicate with Lady
Katharine! But"--with sudden hopefulness--"perhaps he wishes to make
absolutely sure; perhaps the identity of the murdered man is not yet
wholly established! Perhaps it is not really the Count de Louvisan after
all."

"It _is_ the Count de Louvisan, Miss Lorne! That was settled beyond all
question last night."

"And Geoffrey Clavering knew it then?"

"And Geoffrey Clavering knew it then--yes! The man slain is, or rather
was, the one known as the Count de Louvisan; on his dead body numbers
whose total make up the sum of nine were marked; and--I fancy you
remember what Geoffrey Clavering threatened when the fellow went to
Clavering Close last night."

Ailsa looked at him, her eyes dilating, the colour draining slowly out
of her cheeks and lips. It was impossible not to grasp the significance
of these two circumstances, one of which--the mysterious markings on the
dead man's body--she now heard of for the first time.

"Oh, Mr. Cleek, oh!" she said faintly. "You surely can't think---- A
dear lovable boy like that! You can't believe that Geoffrey Clavering
had anything to do with it?"

"I hope not, for, frankly, I like the boy. But one thing is certain: if
_he_ didn't kill the man, he knows who did; knows, too, that there is a
woman implicated in the crime."

"A woman! Oh, Mr. Cleek, a--a woman?"

"Yes--perhaps two women!"

"Women and--and a deed of violence, a deed of horror, like that? No!
Women couldn't. They would be fiends, not women. I hold too high an
estimate of my sex to let you call them that! And for him, for Geoffrey
Clavering, there is but one woman in all the world! Even you shan't hint
it of _her_! No, not even you."

"Hush!