lf for some effort.
"Tell me! Did you hear what I said just now--as you passed the door?"

"Do you mean about not believing that your father was a suicide?" asked
Minnie, in a low voice.

"Yes."

"I--I heard you."

"Then the only thing you can do is to help me prove otherwise," said
Viola. "That would be the greatest help. It can't be true, and we want
that made plain. Father never killed himself. He was not that kind of
man. He did not fear death, but he would not go deliberately to meet it.
It is not true that he killed himself!" and Viola's voice seemed to ring
out.

A strange look came over the face of Minnie Webb. There was a great pity
shining in her eyes as she said:

"I--I am sorry, Viola, but--but I am afraid it may be true."

"What! That my father committed suicide?"

"Yes," whispered Minnie. "I--I'm afraid it may be true!"

CHAPTER V. HARRY'S MISSION

Minnie Webb's announcement affected her four hearers in four different
ways. It shocked Viola--shocked her greatly, for she had, naturally,
expected kindly sympathy and agreement from her friend.

Dr. Baird, who had involuntarily begun to twist his small mustache at
the entrance of Miss Webb, looked at her in admiration of her good looks
and because she upheld a theory to which he felt himself committed--a
theory that Mr. Carwell was a plain out-and-out suicide.

Dr. Lambert was plainly indignant at the bald manner in which Minnie
Webb made her statement, and at the same time he had pity for the
ignorance of the lay mind that will pronounce judgment against the more
cautious opinions of science. And this was not the first poisoning case
with which the aged practitioner had dealt.

As for Captain Poland, he gazed blankly at Miss Webb for a moment
following her statement, and then he looked more keenly at the young
woman, as though seeking to know whence her information came.

And when Viola had recovered from her first shock this was the thought
that came to her:

"What did Minnie know?"

And Viola asked that very question--asked it sharply and with an air
which told of her determination to know.

"Oh, please don't ask me!" stammered Minnie Webb. "But I have heard that
your father's affairs are involved, Viola."

"His affairs? You mean anything in his--private life?" and the
daughter of Horace Carwell--"Carwell the sport," as he was frequently
called--seemed to feel this blow more than the shock of death.

"Oh, no, nothing like that