over Sir Rupert had insisted on her going to bed and not
getting up until luncheon-time, and she had quietly submitted, and had
been undressed, and had slept a little in a fitful, upstarting sort of
way; and at last noon came, and she soon got up again, and bathed, and
prepared to be very heroic and enduring and self-composed. She was much
in the habit of going into the conservatory before luncheon, and Ericson
had often found her there; and perhaps she had in her own mind a
lingering expectation that if he got back from the village, and the
coroner, and the magistrates, and all the rest of it, in time, he would
come to the conservatory and look for her. She wanted him to go to
Gloria--oh, yes--of course, she wanted him to go--he was going perhaps
that very day; but she did not want him to go before he had spoken to
her--alone--alone. We have said that she did not know whether he cared
about her or not. So she told herself. But did not an instinct the other
way drive her into that conservatory where they had met before about the
same hour of the day--on less fateful days?

The house looked quiet and peaceful enough now under the clear, poetic
melancholy of an autumn sunlight. The musical Oriental bells--a set the
same as those that Helena had established in the London house--rang out
their announcement or warning that luncheon-time was coming as blithely
as though the house were not a mournful hospital for the sick and for
the dead. Helena was moving slowly, sadly, in the conservatory. She did
not care to affront the glare of the open, and outer day. Suddenly
Ericson came dreamily in, and he flushed at seeing her, and her cheek
hung out involuntarily, unwillingly, its red flag in reply. There was a
moment of embarrassment and silence.

'All these terrible things will not alter your plans?' she asked, in a
voice curiously timid for her.

'My plans about Gloria?'

'Yes; I mean your plans about Gloria.'

'Oh, no; I have not much evidence to offer. You see, I can only give the
police a clue--I can't do more than that. I have been to the inquest and
have told that I remember the crimes of these men and their names, but I
cannot identify either of the men personally. As soon as I get out to
Gloria I shall make it all clear. But until then I can only put the
police here on the track.'

'Then you _are_ going?' she asked in pathetic tone. The truth is, that
she was not much thinking about the chances of justice being done