the knee
down--but as he shot past me in the moonlight I caught sight of
something like a huge splash of blood on his clothes, and coupling
that with the rest I nearly went out of my senses. It wasn't
until long afterward I recollected that the badge of the County
Club is the winged foot of Mercury wrought in brilliant scarlet
embroidery. To me, just then, that thing of red was blood--my
uncle's blood--and I ran and ran and ran until I got back here to
the house and flew up the covered passage and burst into the Round
House. He was sitting there still--just as he had been sitting
before. But he didn't call out to me this time; he didn't reprove me
for disturbing him; didn't make one single movement, utter one single
sound. And when I went to him I knew why. He was dead--stone dead!
The face and throat of him were torn and rent as if some furious
animal had mauled him, and there were curious yellow stains upon his
clothes. That's all, Mr. Headland. I don't know what I did nor
where I went from the moment I rushed shrieking from that room
until I came to my senses and found myself in this one with dear,
kind Mrs. Armroyd here bending over me and doing all in her power
to soothe and to comfort me."

"There, there, cherie, you shall not more distress yourself. It is
of a hardness too great for the poor mind to bear," put in Mrs.
Armroyd herself at this, bending over the sofa as she spoke and
softly smoothing the girl's hair. "It is better she should be at
peace for a little, is it not, monsieur?"

"Very much better, madame," replied Cleek, noting how softly her hand
fell, and how gracefully it moved over the soft hair and across the
white forehead. "No doubt the major part of what still remains to be
told, you in the goodness of your heart, will supply----"

"Of a certainty, monsieur, of a certainty."

"--But for the present," continued Cleek, finishing the interrupted
sentence, "there still remains a question or two which must be
asked, and which only Miss Renfrew herself can answer. As those are
of a private and purely personal nature, madame, would it be asking
too much----" He gave his shoulders an eloquent Frenchified shrug,
looked up at her after the manner of her own countrymen, and let
the rest of the sentence go by default.

"Madame" looked at him and gave her little hands an airy and a
graceful flirt.

"Of a certainty, monsieur," she said, with charming grace. "_Cela
m'est egal_," and walked away with a