mized by her own
loveliness. For if she had not been lovely, thought Hugo, if the curves
of her cheek and her nostrils and the colour of her skin had been ever
so slightly different, the world might have contained one widower, one
ruined heart, and one murderer the less that night.

He did not doubt, he could not doubt, after Ravengar's threats, that she
had been murdered. And yet he was not angry then. He did not feel a
great grief. He was conscious of no sensation save a numbed and desolate
awe. He had not begun to feel. Ledging the lid crossways on the coffin,
he placed his hand gently upon Camilla's brow. It was colder than he had
expected, and it had the peculiar hard, inelastic touch of incipient
decay--that touch which communicates a shudder even to the most
impassive.

'I must go,' he whispered, staring spell-bound at her face.

He was surprised to find drops of moisture falling on the shroud. They
were his tears, and yet he had not known that he was crying.

He hid her again beneath the elm plank, and, taking the screws one by
one from the mantel-piece, shut her up for ever from any human gaze. And
then, nearly collapsing under a nervous tension such as he had never
before experienced, he turned to leave the apartment as he had entered
it, like a thief. But the mystery of the heavy velvet portiere
invincibly attracted him. His steps wavered towards it. He fancied he
saw something dark protruding under the curtain, and he pulled the
curtain aside with a movement almost hysteric. A man lay extended at
full length on his chest in the passage beyond--what Hugo had noticed
was his boot.

'Tudor!' he exclaimed, kneeling to examine the half-concealed face.

At the same moment a figure came quietly down the passage. Hugo looked
up, and saw a sallow-featured man of about thirty-five in a tourist
suit, with light beard and hair, and long thin hands.

'What is this?' asked the stranger evenly. 'Who are you?'

'My name is Hugo,' Hugo answered with assurance. 'I was walking along
the balconies, as I do sometimes at night, and I heard strange sounds
here, and as the window was open I stepped in and found this. Are you a
friend of Mr. Tudor's?'

The other bent in his turn, and after examining the prone body said:

'I was. He has no friends now.'

'You mean he is dead?'

'He must have died within the last quarter of an hour or so.'

'And nothing can be done?'

'Nothing can be done with death!'

'I take it yo