it he refused point-blank to
answer. Gradually the idea sprang up, and began to circulate, that Sir
Allan Beaumerville had formed an idea of his own concerning the Maddison
murder, and that it was one which he intended to keep to himself. Every
one was curious about it, but in the face of his reticence, no one cared
to ask him what it was.

* * * * *

A plain whitewashed cell, with high bare walls and tiny window, through
which the sunlight could only struggle faintly. Only one article of
furniture which could justly be called such, a rude wooden bedstead, and
seated on its end with folded arms and bent head, like a man in some
sort of stupor, sat Bernard Maddison.

He was in that most pitiable of all states, when merciless realization
had driven before it all apathy, all lingering hope, all save that
deadly cold sea of absolute, unutterable despair. There had been moments
on his first arrival here, when he had fallen into a dozing sleep, and
had leaped up from his hard bed, and had stretched up his hands above
his head, and had called out in agony that it must be a dream, a hideous
nightmare from which he would awaken only to look back upon it with
horror. And then his glazed, fearful eyes had slowly taken in his
surroundings--the stone walls, the cold floor, the barred window--and
pitiless memory had dragged back his thoughts amongst the vivid horrors
of the last forty-eight hours. It was all there, written in letters of
fire. He shrunk back upon his mattress and buried his face in his hands,
whilst every instinct of manliness fought against the sobs which seemed
as though they would rend to pieces his very frame.

Once more the morning light had come, and the burning agony of the hours
of darkness was exchanged for the cold, crushing despair of the weary
day. They had brought his breakfast, which he had loathed and left
untasted. And then, as he sat there, so worn out with physical and
mental exhaustion, something of a dull miserable apathy acted like opium
on his wearied nerves and brain. He sat there thinking.

The great passions of the world are either our sweetest happiness or
our most utter misery. Not unfrequently the one becomes the other.
Circumstances may change, but the force remains, sometimes, after
yielding us the most exquisite pleasure, to lash us with scorpion-like
whips. The love of Bernard Maddison had thrilled through heart and
soul--it had become not a thing of