that Mr. Durand's detention was
looked on as the almost certain prelude to his arrest on the charge of
murder.

I had had some discipline in life. Although a favorite of my wealthy
uncle, I had given up very early the prospects he held out to me of a
continued enjoyment of his bounty, and entered on duties which required
self-denial and hard work. I did this because I enjoy having both my
mind and heart occupied. To be necessary to some one, as a nurse is to
a patient, seemed to me an enviable fate till I came under the influence
of Anson Durand. Then the craving of all women for the common lot of
their sex became my craving also; a craving, however, to which I failed
at first to yield, for I felt that it was unshared, and thus a token of
weakness. Fighting my battle, I succeeded in winning it, as I thought,
just as the nurse's diploma was put in my hands. Then came the great
surprise of my life. Anson Durand expressed his love for me and I awoke
to the fact that all my preparation had been for home joys and a woman's
true existence. One hour of ecstasy in the light of this new hope, then
tragedy and something approaching chaos! Truly I had been through a
schooling. But was it one to make me useful in the only way I could
be useful now? I did not know; I did not care; I was determined on my
course, fit or unfit, and, in the relief brought by this appeal to my
energy, I rose and dressed and went about the duties of the day.

One of these was to determine whether Mr. Grey, on his return to his
hotel, had found his daughter as ill as his fears had foreboded. A
telephone message or two satisfied me on this point. Miss Grey was
very ill, but not considered dangerously so; indeed, if anything, her
condition was improved, and if nothing happened in the way of fresh
complications, the prospects were that she would be out in a fortnight.

I was not surprised. It was more than I had expected. The cry of the
banshee in an American house was past belief, even in an atmosphere
surcharged with fear and all the horror surrounding a great crime; and
in the secret reckoning I was making against a person I will not even
name at this juncture, I added it as another suspicious circumstance.

VI. SUSPENSE

To relate the full experiences of the next few days would be to encumber
my narrative with unnecessary detail.

I did not see Mr. Durand again. My uncle, so amenable in most matters,
proved Inexorable on this point. Till Mr. D