was seated by herself some distance away, turning over the
leaves of a magazine, when a loud remark by one of the speakers startled
her into an attitude of listening fear. "Have you read about this Cornwall
murder?" The words, cold and distinct, had broken into her sad reflections
like a stone dropped from a great height. They had gone on talking without
looking at her, and she had listened intently, masking her conscious
features with the open magazine. It was well that she did. They discussed
the murder in animated tones. The strangest case! ... A great title ...
the Turrald title ... to be heard before the House of Lords next week ...
and now the claimant was murdered ... he was very wealthy, too. Thus they
talked; then the first voice, which seemed to dominate all the others,
broke in: "It was thought to be suicide at first, but I see by tonight's
paper that his daughter is suspected. She has disappeared, and is supposed
to have fled to London. What are girls coming to--always shooting somebody
or somebody shooting them! It's the war, I suppose...."

The shock of that double disclosure had been almost too much to bear. Till
then she had not known that her father had been murdered, much less that
she was suspected of killing him. Dizziness had swept over her. Things
seemed to spin round her, yet she saw them rotating with a kind of
dreadful distinctness--the false smiling faces of the women, the
furniture, a cat blinking on the hearthrug, an empty coffee cup on a small
table. One stout lady, enthroned on a pile of red and blue cushions,
sailed round and round on a sofa with the preposterous repetition and
tragic reality of a fat woman on a roundabout. Then the circling faces and
furniture vanished. She swayed with the sensation of growing darkness, and
had the oddest fancy that the break of the waves on Cornish cliffs was
sounding in her ears. She was dreamily inhaling the sea air....

She had pulled herself sharply together. She had something of her father's
tenacity and courage in her composition, and that had nerved her to face
the ordeal and saved her from giving herself away. The darkness lightened,
the electric lights danced dizzily back into view, and the room became
stationary once more. With an effort at calmness she rose from her seat
and sought her room, and next morning she left the house. Henceforth her
lot was one of furtive movement and concealment.

As she lay there, staring open-eyed into the darkne