ame, Mr. Roper, but not a double game; and in the future I
really wouldn't suggest your choosing a dying man's wife to play it
with. It's the kind of thing that awfully ruffles his friends."

"I don't know what you mean," said Mr. Roper, hastily edging toward the
door; "your language is most uncalled for. And as to going away, I shall
do nothing of the kind."

"Better think it over," said Winn, with misleading calm. He moved
forward as he spoke, seized Mr. Roper by the back of his coat as if he
were some kind of boneless mechanical toy, and deposited him in the
passage outside the door.

Mrs. Bouncing screamed again. This time it was a shrill and gratified
scream. She felt herself to be the heroine of an occasion. Winn eyed her
as a hostile big dog eyes one beneath his fighting powers. Then he said:

"I shouldn't make that noise if I were you; it's out of place. I came
here to give you bad news."

This time Mrs. Bouncing didn't scream. She took hold of the edge of the
table and repeated three times in a strange, expressionless voice:

"George is dead! George is dead! George is dead!"

Winn thought she was going to faint, but she didn't. She held on to the
table.

"What ought I to do, Major Staines?" she asked in a quavering voice.

Winn considered the question gravely. It was a little late in the day
for Mrs. Bouncing to start what she ought to do, but he approved of her
determination.

"I think," he said at last--"I think you ought to go in and look at him.
It's usual."

"Oh, dear!" said Mrs. Bouncing, with a shiver, "I never have seen a
corpse!"

Winn escorted her to the bedside and then turned away from her. She
looked down at her dead husband. Mr. Bouncing had no anxiety in his face
at all now; he looked incredibly contented and young.

"I--I suppose he really is gone?" said Mrs. Bouncing in a low voice.
Then she moved waveringly over to a big armchair.

"There is no doubt about it at all," said Winn. "I didn't ring up
Gurnet. He will come in any case first thing to-morrow morning."

Mrs. Bouncing moved her beringed hands nervously, and then suddenly
began to cry. She cried quietly into her pocket-handkerchief, with her
shoulders shaking.

"I wish things hadn't happened!" she sobbed. "Oh, dear! I wish things
hadn't happened!" She did not refer to the death of Mr. Bouncing. Winn
said nothing. "I really didn't mean any harm," Mrs. Bouncing went on
between her sobs--"not at first. You know how thing