etermined that she would see this thing for herself.
She struggled on a few steps nearer. There was something lying on the
grass around which they were all gathered; something very much like a
human shape. Ah! she could see more plainly now. It was Sir
Geoffrey--Sir Geoffrey Kynaston. He was lying half on the grass and half
in the dry ditch. His white face was upturned to the cloudless sky; by
his side, and discoloring his brown tweed shooting coat, was a dark wet
stain. In the midst of it something bright was flashing in the sunlight.

She stood still, rooted to the spot with a great horror. Her pulses had
ceased to beat. The warm summer day seemed suddenly to have closed in
around her. There was a singing in her ears, and she found herself
battling hard with a deadly faintness. Yet she found words.

"Has he--shot himself?" she cried. "Is it an accident?"

Her father turned round with a little cry, and hastened to her side.

"Helen!" he gasped. "You should not be here! Come away, child! I sent
Lathon----"

"I will know--what it is. Is it an accident? Is he--dead?"

He shook his head. The healthy sunburnt tan had left his face, and he
was white to the lips.

"He has been murdered!" he faltered. "Foully, brutally murdered!"

CHAPTER III

MR. BERNARD BROWN

Murder is generally associated in one's mind with darkness, the still
hours of night, and bestiality. It is the outcome of the fierce animal
lust for blood, provoked by low passions working in low minds. De
Quincey's brilliant attempt to elevate it to a place among the fine arts
has only enriched its horrors as an abstract idea. Even detached from
its usual environment of darkness, and ignorance, and vice, it is an
ugly thing.

But here was something quite different. Such a tragedy as this which had
just occurred was possessed of a peculiar hideousness of its own. It
seemed to have completely laid hold of the little group of men gathered
round the body of Sir Geoffrey Kynaston; to have bereft them of all
reasoning power and thought, to have numbed even their limbs and
physical instincts. It was only a few minutes ago since they had left
him, careless and debonair, with his thoughts intent upon the business,
or rather the sport, of the hour. His laugh had been the loudest, his
enjoyment the keenest, and his gun the most deadly of them all. But now
he lay there cold and lifeless, with his heart's blood staining the
green turf, and his sightless eyes