e was all
in black, with only a stole of pure white about her shoulders. "But
tell me," she added, presently--"for it's one of the reasons why I'm
here now--what happened at the inquest to-day? The evening papers are
not out, and you were there, of course, and gave evidence, I suppose.
Was it very trying? I'm sure it was, for I've never seen you look so
pale. You are positively haggard, Ian. You don't mind that from an old
friend, do you? You look terribly ill, just when you should look so
well."

"Why should I look so well?" He gazed at her steadily. Had she any
glimmering of the real situation? She was staying now in Byng's house,
and two days had gone since the world had gone wrong; since Jasmine had
sunk to the floor unconscious as Al'mah sang, "More was lost at
Mohacksfield."

"Why should you look so well? Because you are the coming man, they say.
It makes me so proud to be your friend--even your neglected, if not
quite discarded, friend. Every one says you have done such splendid
work for England, and that now you can have anything you want. The ball
is at your feet. Dear man, you ought to look like a morning-glory, and
not as you do. Tell me, Ian, are you ill, or is it only the reaction
after all you've done?"

"No doubt it's the reaction," he replied.

"I know you didn't like Adrian Fellowes much," she remarked, watching
him closely. "He behaved shockingly at the Glencader Mine
affair--shockingly. Tynie was for pitching him out of the house, and
taking the consequences; but, all the same, a sudden death like that
all alone must have been dreadful. Please tell me, what was the
verdict?"

"Heart failure was the verdict; with regret for a promising life cut
short, and sympathy with the relatives."

"I never heard that he had heart trouble," was the meditative response.
"But--well, of course, it was heart failure. When the heart stops
beating, there's heart failure. What a silly verdict!"

"It sounded rather worse than silly," was Ian's comment.

"Did--did they cut him up, to see if he'd taken morphia, or an overdose
of laudanum or veronal or something? I had a friend who died of taking
quantities of veronal while you were abroad so long--a South American,
she was."

He nodded. "It was all quite in order. There were no signs of poison,
they said, but the heart had had a shock of some kind. There had been
what they called lesion, and all that kind of thing, and not sufficient
strength for recovery."

"