nd. I must tell someone. I loved
her.'

He touched the elm-wood gently, and hurried out of the room by the
French window.

* * * * *

Four days later Mr. Senior Polycarp called on Hugo in his central
office.

In the meantime the inquest had proved the correctness of Mr. Darcy's
diagnosis. Francis Tudor was buried, and Francis Tudor's wife was
buried. Hugo, who had accompanied the funerals disguised as one of his
own 'respectful attendants,' saw scarcely anyone. He had to recover the
command of his own soul, and to adopt some definite attitude towards the
army of suspicions which naturally had assailed him. Could he believe
Darcy? He decided that he could, and that he must. Darcy had inspired
him with confidence, and there was no doubt that the man had an
extensive practice in Paris, and was well known at the British Embassy.
Camilla, then, had really died of typhoid fever on her honeymoon, and
hence Ravengar had not murderously compassed her death. And people did
die of typhoid fever, and people did die on their honeymoons.

Either Ravengar's threats had been idle, or Fate had mercifully robbed
him of the opportunity to execute them. Hugo remembered that he had
begun by regarding the threats as idle, and that it was only later, in
presence of Camilla's corpse, that he had thought otherwise of them. So
he drove back the army of suspicions, and settled down to accustom
himself to the eternal companionship of a profound and irremediable
grief.

Then it was that Polycarp called.

'I come to you,' said the white-moustached solicitor, 'on behalf of my
late client, Mr. Tudor. He made his will after his marriage, and before
starting for Paris, and it contains a peculiar clause. Mr. Tudor had the
flat on a three years' agreement, renewable at his option for a further
period of two years. Over two years of the three are expired.'

'That is so,' said Hugo. 'You want to get rid of the tenancy at once?
Well, I don't mind. I can easily--'

'No,' Polycarp interrupted him, 'I wish to give notice of renewal. The
will provides that if the testator should die within two months of the
date of it the flat shall be sealed up exactly as it stands for twelve
months after his death, and that the estate shall be held by me, as
executor and trustee, for that period, and then dealt with according to
instructions deposited in the testator's private safe in the vault which
I rent from you in your Safe Depos