hink he
loved Cynthia once. She was a beautiful girl, and is still a handsome
woman, though trouble has left its mark on her. Well, it's a queer
world anyhow!"

"Isn't it?" agreed the colonel. "And it takes all sorts of persons to
make it up. I'm sorry I can't offer any explanation as to why your
client wouldn't accept money when she had a perfect right to it.
However, as you won your case I suppose it doesn't so much matter."

"Not a great deal. Still I would like to know. There will be a
sensation when this comes out."

And there was, when Daley, of the _Times_, scooped the other reporters
and sprang his sensational story of the separation of the Larchs, the
case having been heard in camera by the vice chancellor.

The murder of Mrs. Darcy had, some time ago, been shifted off the front
page, though it would get back there when the young jeweler was tried.
As for the killing of Shere Ali, that occasioned only passing interest,
the murdered man not being well known.

But the separation of Mr. and Mrs. Larch was different. The finely
appointed hotel kept by Larch, called the "Homestead," from the name of
an old inn of Colonial days which it replaced, was known for miles
around. It had a double reputation, so to speak. Though it had a
grill, in which, nightly, there gathered such of the "sports" of
Colchester as cared for that form of entertainment, the Homestead also
catered to gatherings of a more refined nature. Grave, and even
reverend, conventions assembled in its ballroom, and politicians of the
upper, if not better, class were frequently seen in its dining-room or
cafe. Being convenient to the courthouse, nearly all the judges and
lawyers took lunch there. The place was also the scene of more or less
important political dinners of the state, at which matters in no slight
degree affecting national policies were often whipped into shape.

Larch himself was a peculiar character. In a smaller place he would
have been called a saloon keeper. Going a little higher up the scale
in population he might have been designated as a hotel proprietor. But
in Colchester, which was rather unique among cities, he was looked up
to as one of the substantial citizens of the place, for he owned the
Homestead, where Washington, when it was a wayside inn, had stopped one
night--at least such was the rumor--and families socially prominent,
some of whose members had very strong views on prohibition, did not
hesitate to