orward, in the least inspiring--nothing calculated to terrify the most
timid person. Yet the girl looked at him with the eyes of a frightened
bird.

"Remember, then," he continued, smoothly, "that what you say to me is
sacred. You and I are alone without witnesses or eavesdroppers. Was it
Brian Sotherst who shot Abbott--or was it you?"

She gave a little cry. Her hands clasped the sides of her head in
horror.

"I!" she exclaimed, "I! God help me!"

He waited. In a moment she looked up.

"You cannot believe that," she said, with a calmness for which he was
scarcely prepared. "It is absurd. I left the room by the inner door as
he took up his hat to step out into the hall."

"Incidentally," he asked--"this is not my other question, mind--why did
you not let him out yourself?"

"We had disagreed," she answered, curtly.

Peter Ruff bent his head in assent.

"I see," he remarked. "You had disagreed. Abbott probably hoped that you
would relent, so he waited for a few minutes. Brian Sotherst, who had
escaped from his engagement in time, he thought, to come and wish you
good night, must have walked in and found him there. By the bye, how
would Captain Sotherst get in?"

"He had a key," the girl answered. "My mother lives here with me, and
we have only one maid. It was more convenient. I gave him one washed in
gold for a birthday present only a few days ago."

"Thank you," Peter Ruff said. "The revolver, I understand, was your
property?"

She nodded.

"It was a present from Brian," she said. "He gave it to me in a joke,
and I had it on the table with some other curiosities."

"The first question," Peter Ruff said, "is disposed of. May I proceed to
the second?"

The girl moistened her lips.

"Yes!" she answered.

"Why did you sup alone with Austen Abbott last night?"

She shrank a little away.

"Why should I not?" she asked.

"You have been on the stage, my dear Miss Shaw," Peter Ruff continued,
"for between four and five years. During the whole of that time, it has
been your very wise habit to join supper parties, of course, when the
company was agreeable to you, but to sup alone with no man! Am I not
right?"

"You seem to know a great deal about me," she faltered.

"Am I not right?" he repeated.

"Yes!"

"You break your rule for the first time," Peter Ruff continued, "in
favour of a man of notoriously bad character, a few weeks after
the announcement of your engagement to an honourable young Eng