g eyes did not leave his face. "What's
the matter, Neil? What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to make you talk out to me," Neil said. "You'll tell me
what's got you, and why you did this, which will be the ruin of you and
me, too, but first you'll tell me something else. You'll tell me what
you've hid from me for a year, you who can tell me the truth when you're
drunk and lie out of it when you're sober, till you've worn me out and
I'm sick of trying to get the truth from you. I'll be getting it now too
late, but I'll get it. Have you or have you not been living on this
man's money?"

"Yes."

"Was it hush money?"

"Yes," Mr. Brady said. "Neil, I'll tell you everything. You've guessed
most of it, but I'll tell you the rest. I can prove it. I can prove
everything I know. I did take hush money. It was dirty money, but I
didn't care. I didn't care what happened. I didn't care till to-day."

"To-day?"

"I got--a letter."

"Go on," Neil said.

As he spoke Mr. Brady's face began suddenly to change, lighting again
with that strange excitement which had gripped him, revived, and burning
through its thin veneer of control. His eyes blazed with it, and his
voice shook with it. He waved a trembling hand toward the library door.
A sound had come from the library, the faintest of sounds, a low,
frightened cry. It was like the ghost of a cry, but he heard. Neil heard
it, too, and was at the door before him, trying to unlock it, fumbling
with the key.

"She's there yet," Mr. Brady cried; "whoever she is. Well, she'll be the
last of them. I had a letter, I tell you, a letter from Maggie. She's
coming home, what's left of her--what he's left of her--Everard. I never
thought he was to blame. I said he was, but I was talked out of it. If
I'd thought so, if I'd suspected it, would I have touched a penny of his
dirty money? But she's coming home. Maggie's coming home."

For the moment Neil was not concerned with the fact. Graver revelations
might have passed over him unheeded. The key had turned at last. Then
Neil felt the door being pushed open from inside. He stepped back and
waited. The door opened cautiously for an inch or two, then swung
suddenly wide. Standing motionless, framed in the library door, was
Judith.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The two cousins, Mr. Brady shocked into sudden silence, stood with
Colonel Everard's unconscious body behind them, unregarded, like any
other bulky and motionless shape in the dim ro