st," she implored, grasping both my hands in hers. "If he had
the slightest suspicion that I had admitted my friendship with him, he
would act as he has always declared he would."

"How would he act?"

"He would reveal something--he would bring proofs that even you would
consider irrefutable," she answered in a low, hard whisper. "No, dear,"
and her grip upon my hands tightened. "In any case there only remains to
me one course--to end it all, for in any case, I must lose you. Your
confidence and love can never be restored."

"You must not speak like that," I said very gravely. "I have not yet lost
confidence in you, Phrida. I----"

"Ah! I know how generous you are, dear," she interrupted, "but how can I
conceal from myself the true position? You have discovered that I visited
that man's flat clandestinely, that--that we were friends--and that----"

She paused, not concluding her sentence, and bursting again into tears,
rushed from the room before I could grasp and detain her.

I stood silent, utterly dumbfounded.

Were those words an admission of her guilt?

Was it by her hand, as that woman had insinuated, the unknown girl's life
had been taken?

I recollected the nature of the wound, as revealed by the medical
evidence, and I recalled that knife which was lying upon the table in
the drawing-room above.

Why did Phrida so carefully conceal from me the exact truth concerning
her friendship with the man I had trusted? What secret power did he
exercise over her? And why did she fear to reveal anything to me--even
though I had assured her that my confidence in her remained unshaken.

Was not guilt written upon that hard, white face?

I stood staring out of the window in blank indecision. What I had all
along half feared had been proved. Between my love and the man of whom I
had never had the slightest suspicion, some secret--some guilty
secret--existed.

And even now, even at risk of losing my affection, she was seeking to
shield him!

My blood boiled within me, and I clenched my fists as I strode angrily up
and down that dark room.

All her admissions came back to me--her frantic appeal to me not to
prejudge her, and her final and out-spoken decision to take her own life
rather than reveal the truth.

What could it mean? What was the real solution of that strange problem of
crime in which, quite unwittingly, I had become so deeply implicated?

I was passing the grate in pacing the room, as I had alrea