watch ticking on the dead man's wrist was
one of them. Many tears had been shed for Val, some very bitter
ones by Yvonne Bendish, but none by Lawrence or by Isabel. It
was murder: a flash of devil's lightning, that withered where it
struck.

Isabel turned in her chair to watch her husband. He had brought
her straight into the drawingroom without staying to remove his
leathern driving coat, which set off his big frame and the
drilled flatness of his shoulders; everything he wore or used was
expensive and fashionable. There came on her suddenly the
impression of being shut up alone with a stranger, a man of whom
she knew nothing except that in upbringing and outlook he was
entirely different from her and her family. The room seemed
immense and Hyde was at the other end of it. Suddenly he turned
and came striding back to Isabel. Her instinct was to defend
herself. She checked it and kept still, her arms and hands
thrown out motionless along the arms of the chair in which her
slight figure was lying in perfect repose. Lawrence tenderly
took her head between his finger-tips and kissed her mouth.
"Why did you raise a ghost you can't lay?" he said. "My cousin
killed your brother." Isabel smiled at him without moving. Her
eyes were mysteriously full of light. Lawrence knelt down and
threw his arms round her waist and let his head fall against her
bosom. What strength there was in this immature personality
neither yielded nor withdrawn! Lawrence was entirely disarmed
and subdued. He uttered a deep sigh and gave up to Isabel with
the simplicity of a child the secret of his tormented restlessness.
"I am unhappy, Isabel."

"I know you are, my darling, and that's why I raised the ghost.
What is it troubles you?"

"My own guilt. I never knew what remorse meant before, but your
Christian ethics have mastered me this time. I had no right to
extract that promise from Val."

"No. Why did you? It seems so motiveless."

"Because it amused me to get a man into my power." Isabel felt
him shuddering. "Is this what you call the sense of sin? I used
to hear it described as a theological fiction. But it tears
one's heart out. Bernard killed him: but who put the weapon into
Bernard's hand?"

"Val did."

"I don't understand you."

"The original fault was Val's, and you and Major Clowes were
entangled in the consequences of it. Let us two face the truth
once and for all! Val can stand it--can't you, Val? . . . H