bly."

"The air of probability attending your execution would have been most
convincing."

"Is my case, then, so desperate?"

"You cannot be tried again, you know."

"I do not mean that. I want to establish my innocence; to compel society
to reinstate me as a man profoundly wronged; above all, to marry the woman
I love."

Brett amused himself by rapidly projecting several rings of smoke through
a large one.

"So you really are innocent?" he said, after a pause.

David Hume rose from his chair, and reached for his hat, gloves, and
stick.

"You have crushed my remaining hope of emancipation," he exclaimed
bitterly. "You have the repute of being able to pluck the heart out of a
mystery, Mr. Brett, so when you assume that I am guilty--"

"I have assumed nothing of the kind. You seem to possess the faculty of
self-control. Kindly exercise it, and answer my questions, Did you kill
your cousin?"

"No."

"Who did kill him?"

"I do not know."

"Do you suspect anybody ?"

"Not in the remotest degree."

"Did he kill himself?"

"That theory was discussed privately, but not brought forward at the
trial. Three doctors said it was not worthy of a moment's consideration."

"Well, you need not shout your replies, and I would prefer to see you
comfortably seated, unless, of course, you feel more at ease near the
door."

A trifle shamefacedly, Hume returned to his former position near the
fireplace--that shrine to which all the household gods do reverence, even
in the height of summer. It is impossible to conceive the occupants of a
room deliberately grouping themselves without reference to the grate.

Brett placed the open scrap-book on his knees, and ran an index finger
along underlined passages in the manner of counsel consulting a brief.

"Why did you give your cousin this sword?"

"Because he told me he was making a collection of Japanese arms, and I
remarked that my grandfather on my mother's side, Admiral Cunningham, had
brought this weapon, with others, from the Far East. It lay for fifty
years in our gun-room at Glen Tochan."

"So you met Sir Alan soon after his return home?"

"Yes, in London, the day he arrived. Came to town on purpose, in fact.
Afterwards I travelled North, and he went to Beechcroft."

"How long afterwards? Be particular as to dates."

"It is quite a simple matter, owing to the season. Alan reached Charing
Cross from Brindisi on December 20. We remained together--that is, lived