about."

"All right; I will," he returned. "You'll remember, I take it, my asking
you to tell me the meaning of the marks on the flap of the grey
envelope. I'll admit I was slow, criminally slow, in coming to the
conclusion that 'Pursuit!' referred to a place rather than an act. But I
got it finally--and I found Pursuit--not much left of it now; it's not
even a postoffice.

"But it's discoverable," he continued on a sterner note, and began to
shave long, slender chips from his block of wood. "I'll give you the
high lights: young Dalton was killed--his murderer made a run for
it--but you, a young widow then, in whose presence the thing was done,
smoothed matters out. You swore it was a matter of self-defence. The
result was that, after a few half-hearted attempts to locate the
fugitive, the pursuit was given up."

"Very well. But why bring that story here--now? What's its
significance?"

He stared at her in amazement. Her thin, sensitive lips were drawn back
at the corners, enough to make her mouth look a trifle wider--and enough
to suggest dimly that their motion was the start of a vindictive
grimace. Otherwise, she was unmoved, unresponsive to the open threat of
what he had said.

"Let me finish," he retorted. "An unfortunate feature, for you, was
that you seemed to have made money out of the tragedy. In straitened
circumstances previously, you began to spend freely--comparatively
speaking--a few days after the murderer's disappearance. In fact,
bribery was hinted; you had to leave the village. See any significance
in that?" he concluded, with irony.

"Suppose you explain it," she said, still cool.

"The significance is in the strengthening of the theory I've had
throughout the whole week that's passed since your daughter was killed
at Sloanehurst."

"What's that?"

She stopped rocking; her eyes played a fiery tattoo on every feature of
his face.

"Your daughter's death was the unexpected result of your attempts to
blackmail young Dalton's murderer. You, being afraid of him, and not
confessing that timidity to Mildred, persuaded her to approach him--in
person."

"I! Afraid of him!" she objected, aroused at last.

Her brows were lowered, a heavy line above her furtive, swift eyes; her
nostrils fluttered nervously.

"Granting your absurd theory," she continued, "why should I have feared
him? What had he done--except strike to save his own life?"

"You forget, Mrs. Brace," he corrected. "That body sho