tatingly.

"I suppose," and then Mark Gifford looked at her with a troubled,
hesitating look, "I suppose, Blanche--I fear I'm going to surprise
you--that you were not aware that he'd been married before?"

"Yes," she said eagerly, "I did know that, Mark."

What on earth was he driving at? That woman, Lionel Varick's first wife,
was surely dead? She, Blanche, had had, by a curious accident, someone
else's word for that. And then--there rose before her the vision of a
ghastly-looking, wild, handsome face; quickly she put it from her, and
went on: "He married, when he was only nineteen, a girl out of his own
class. They separated for a while; then they seem to have come together
again, and, fortunately for Lionel, she died."

"She died murdered--poisoned."

Mark Gifford uttered the dread words very quietly. "Almost certainly
poisoned by her husband, Lionel Varick."

A mist came over Blanche Farrow's eyes. She turned suddenly sick and
faint.

She put out her hand blindly. Gifford took it, and made her sit down on
a stone bench.

"I'm sorry," he said feelingly, "very, very sorry to have had to tell
you this dreadful thing, Blanche."

"Never mind," she muttered. "Go on, Mark, if there's anything else to
say--go on."

As he remained silent for a moment, she asked, in a dull, tired tone:
"But if this awful thing is true, how was it found out, after so many
years?"

"It's a peculiar story," he answered reluctantly. "The late--I might say
the last--Mrs. Varick, whose name, as you of course know, was Millicent
Fauncey, had first as governess, and then as companion, an elderly woman
called by the extraordinary name of Pigchalke. This Julia Pigchalke
seemed to have hated Varick from the first. She violently disapproved of
the engagement, quarrelled with Miss Fauncey about it, and the two women
never met after the marriage. But Miss Pigchalke evidently cared deeply
for poor Mrs. Varick; I've seen her, and convinced myself of that."

"What is she like?" asked Blanche suddenly.

"Well, she's not attractive! A stout, stumpy, grey-haired woman, with a
very red face."

Blanche covered her eyes with her hands. "Go on," she said again, "go
on, Mark, with what you were saying."

"Where was I? Oh, I know now! When Mrs. Varick died, within less than a
year of her marriage, Miss Pigchalke suspected foul play, and she
deliberately set herself to track Lionel Varick down. She made it her
business to find out everything about h