nd Ballard waited in the
silence of the deserted library for what seemed like a long time. And
when the waiting came to an end it was not Bigelow who parted the
portieres and came silently to stand before his chair; it was the king's
daughter.

"You have heard?" she asked, and her voice seemed to come from some
immeasurable depth of anguish.

"Yes. Is he better?"

"Much better; though he is terribly weak and shaken." Then suddenly:
"What brought you here--so late?"

He explained the ostensible object of his coming, and mentioned the
cause of the delay. She heard him through without comment, but there was
doubt and keen distress and a great fear in the gray eyes when he was
permitted to look into their troubled depths.

"If you are telling me the truth, you are not telling me all of it," she
said, sinking wearily into one of the deepest of the easy-chairs and
shading the tell-tale eyes with her hand.

"Why shouldn't I tell you all of it?" he rejoined evasively.

"I don't know your reasons: I can only fear them."

"If you could put the fear into words, perhaps I might be able to allay
it," he returned gently.

"It is past alleviation; you know it. Mr. Wingfield was with you again
to-day, and when he came home I knew that the thing I had been dreading
had come to pass."

"How could you know it? Not from anything Wingfield said or did, I'm
sure."

"No; but Jerry Blacklock was with him--and Jerry's face is an open book
for any one who cares to read it. Won't you please tell me the worst,
Breckenridge?"

"There isn't any worst," denied Ballard, lying promptly for love's sake.
"We had luncheon together, the four of us, in honour of Bromley's
recovery. Afterward, Wingfield spun yarns for us--as he has a habit of
doing when he can get an audience of more than one person. Some of his
stories were more grewsome than common. I don't wonder that Jerry had a
left-over thrill or two in his face."

She looked up from behind the eye-shading hand. "Do you dare to repeat
those stories to me?"

His laugh lacked something of spontaneity.

"It is hardly a question of daring; it is rather a matter of memory--or
the lack of it. Who ever tries to make a record of after-dinner
fictions? Wingfield's story was a tale of impossible crimes and their
more impossible detection; the plot and outline for a new play, I
fancied, which he was trying first on the dog. Blacklock was the only
one of his three listeners who took him seriou