ash of a knife wound.

"Will, dear, I meant nothing at all."

"You're lying."

Abruptly he took his hands from her shoulders, got off the bed, and
went to the chest of drawers. Her handbag was on the drawers; and when
she saw him pick it up she sprang after him, clutching at his hands
and imploring.

"You'll find nothing there. Nothing that I can't explain;" and she
made a desperate gurgling laugh. "Why, Will, old man, it is you that's
drunk, yourself, after chaffing me? No, you shan't. No, Will, you
shan't."

He gave her a back-hander that sent her reeling. It was the first time
he had struck her, and he delivered the blow quite automatically, the
thought that she was preventing him from opening the bag and the
action that got rid of her interference being all one process. His
hand had remained open, but he swung it with unhesitating force; and
now, as he plunged it into the bag, he saw that there was blood on it.

Before he had extracted all the contents of the bag she was back
again, once more clinging, clutching, and impeding. He did not strike
her again--merely shook her off so violently that she fell to the
floor, where she lay for a moment.

In the inner pockets of the bag there were three five-pound notes,
together with a tooth-brush and several small articles wrapped up in
paper. These he laid on one side, while he carefully examined all the
odds and ends that had been packed loose in the bag. Three or four
pocket-handkerchiefs, a new piece of scented soap, a pair of
nail-scissors--as he looked at each innocent article, he gave a snort.

She had come back, but she had not risen from the ground; while he
slowly pursued his investigations she kept quite still, crouching
close to his legs, silently waiting.

She could not see what he was doing, but presently she knew that he
had begun to unfold the paper from the things she had hidden in the
pocket.

"Ah," and he snorted. One of the bits of paper held hairpins; another
a side-comb; and another, a bit of trebly folded paper, proved to be
an envelope--the envelope of one of the letters that he had sent to
her at North Ride Cottage. He looked at the postmark. The postmark
told him that the envelope belonged to a letter he had written four
days ago.

Then he found what she had put in the envelope before she folded it.
It was the return half of a railway ticket, from London to Rodchurch
Road--he turned it in his fingers and examined the date on the back