Colonel Ashley fished for a time in silence, broken only by the gentle
snores of Shag, farther back in the field, and by the murmur of the
water. The old colored man, wrapped in a warm coat, for it was not
summer yet, seemed to be enjoying his siesta when, with a suddenness
that was startling in that solitude, the military detective uttered a
cry of:

"I've got it!"

"What?" called Kenneth. "The solution to my problem?"

"No! My fish!" chuckled the colonel, as he skilfully played the
luckless trout, now struggling to get loose from the hook.

And when the fish was landed, panting on the grass, and Shag had been
roused from his slumber to slip the now limp fish into the creel,
Colonel Ashley gave a sigh of relief and remarked:

"I think I see it now."

"The reason she asked no alimony?" inquired Kenneth.

"No. I wasn't thinking of that. But I have been gathering up some
loose ends, and I think I know where to tie them together. However,
don't think I'm not interested in your case. I've fished enough for
to-day. Not that, ordinarily, I'm satisfied with one, but I'm not
working the rod now. I am, as Shag calls it, 'detectin',' and I just
came out here to clarify my thoughts. Having done that, I'm at your
service, if I can help."

"Well, I don't know that you can. As I said, the facts of the
separation of the Larchs will soon be heralded all over the city, for
the final papers were filed to-day, and the reporters will be sure to
see them. So there is no harm in my telling you about it. It's a
plain and sordid story enough, with the exception of her refusal of
alimony, and that I can't understand. Do you care to hear about it?"

"Certainly, my dear Kenneth."

"It has no connection with the Darcy murder, and so I didn't mention it
to you before."

"Go on."

"It isn't generally known," went on the lawyer, "that the hotel
keeper's wife has left him. She went away a short time ago, and came
to me and told me her story. It was one of what at first might be
called refined cruelty on her husband's part, degenerating gradually
into that of the baser sort."

"You don't mean that Larch struck her--that there was physical abuse,
do you?" asked the colonel.

"That's what he did. He seems to have been decent for a while after
their marriage--which marriage was a mistake from the first--I can see
that now. I used to know Cynthia when she was a girl--she was the
daughter of Lodan Ratchford, and her mot