w
it a truth by the warm fireside glow the contemplation of her cast over
him.

Dining alone, as he usually had to do, he was astonished to see the earl
enter his room.

'Ah, you always make the right choice!' Fleetwood said, and requested
him to come to the library when he had done eating.

Gower imagined an accident. A metallic ring was in the earl's voice.

One further mouthful finished dinner, for Gower was anxious concerning
the ladies. He joined the earl and asked.

'Safe. Oh yes. We managed to keep it from them,' said Fleetwood.
'Nothing particular, perhaps you'll think. Poor devil of a fellow!
Father and mother alive, too! He did it out of hearing, that 'a one
merit. Mallard: Ambrose Mallard. He has blown his brains out.'

Seated plunged in the armchair, with stretched legs and eyes at the
black fire-grate, Fleetwood told of the gathering under the tent, and
Mallard seen, seen drinking champagne; Mallard no longer seen, not
missed.

'He killed himself three fields off. He must have been careful to
deaden the sound. Small pocket-pistol hardly big enough to--but anything
serves. Couple of brats came running up to Chummy Potts:--"Gentleman's
body bloody in a ditch." Chummy came to me, and we went. Clean dead;--in
the mouth, pointed up; hole through the top of the skull. We're
crockery! crockery! I had to keep Chummy standing. I couldn't bring
him back to our party. We got help at a farm; the body lies there. And
that's not the worst. We found a letter to me in his pocket pencilled
his last five minutes. I don't see what he could have done except to go.
I can't tell you more. I had to keep my face, rowing and driving back.
"But where is Mr. Potts? Where can Mr. Mallard be?" Queer sensation, to
hear the ladies ask! Give me your hand.'

The earl squeezed Gower's hand an instant; and it was an act unknown for
him to touch or bear a touch; it said a great deal.

Late at night he mounted to Gower's room. The funeral of the day's
impressions had not been skaken off. He kicked at it and sunk under it
as his talk rambled. 'Add five thousand,' he commented, on the spread of
Livia's papers over the table. 'I've been having an hour with her. Two
thousand more, she says. Better multiply by two and a half for a woman's
confession. We have to trust to her for some of the debts of honour. See
her in the morning. No one masters her but you. Mind, the first to be
clear of must be St. Ombre. I like the fellow; but these Fr