where he had been waiting and
watching for long.

His appearance startled her--his eyes were so wild, his whole manner so
strained and restless, and she gave a little dismayed exclamation as she
saw him.

"Oh, what's the matter?" she asked. "Aren't you well? You look--"

She paused for she did not know exactly how it was he did look; and he
said in his harshest, most abrupt manner,

"Do you remember Charley Wright?"

"Why do you ask?" she said, puzzled. "Is anything wrong?"

"Do you remember John Clive?" he asked, disregarding this. "Have you
heard two men have been arrested for his murder?"

"Mrs. Barker told me so," she answered gravely. He came a little nearer,
almost threateningly nearer.

"What do you think of that?" he asked.

She lifted one hand and put it gently on his arm. The touch of it
thrilled him through and through, and he felt a little dazed as he
watched it resting on his coat sleeve. She had become very pale also and
her voice was low and strained as she said,

"Have you had suspicions too?"

He looked at her as if fascinated for a moment, and then nodded twice
and very slowly.

"So have I," she sighed in tones so low he could scarcely hear them.

"Oh, you, you also," he muttered, almost suffocating.

"Yes," she said. "Yes--perhaps the same as yours. My stepfather," she
breathed, "Mr. Deede Dawson."

He watched her closely and moodily, but he did not speak.

"I was afraid--at first," she whispered. "But I was wrong--quite wrong.
It is as certain as it can be that he was in London at the time."

From his pocket Dunn took out the handkerchief of hers that he had found
near the body of the dead man.

"Is this yours?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered. "Yes, where did you get it?"

He did not answer, but he lifted his hands one after the other, and put
them on her shoulder, with the fingers outspread to encircle her
throat. It seemed to him that when she acknowledged the ownership of the
handkerchief she acknowledged also the perpetration of the deed, and he
became a little mad, and he had it in his mind that the slightest, the
very slightest, pressure of his fingers on that soft, round throat
would put it for ever out of her power to do such things again. Then for
himself death would be easy and welcome, and there would be an end to
all these doubts and fears that racked him with anguish beyond bearing.

"What are you going to do?" she asked, making no attempt to resist or
escape.