dreadful thing!" said Simone Holbord perfunctorily; her
attention was wandering to all the other attractions in this attractive
room. A pile of letters was lying on a writing-table, and the reckless
young woman began to look at the envelopes. "Just look at this pile of
letters!" she cried. "How funny! Every one of them in a woman's hand! I
suppose Valgrand gets all sorts of offers?"

Colonel Holbord went on talking to the Comte de Baral in a corner of the
room.

"I am enormously interested in what you tell me. What happened then?"

"Well, this wretch, Gurn, was recognised by the police as he was leaving
Lady Beltham's, and was arrested and put in prison. The trial came on at
the Court of Assize about six weeks ago. All Paris went to it, of course
including myself! This man Gurn is a brute, but a strange brute, rather
difficult to define; he swore that he had killed Lord Beltham after a
quarrel, practically for the sake of robbing him, but I had a strong
impression that he was lying."

"But why else should he have committed the murder?"

The Comte de Baral shrugged his shoulders.

"Nobody knows," he said: "politics, perhaps, nihilism, or perhaps
again--love. There was one fact, or coincidence, worth noting: when Lady
Beltham came home from the Transvaal after the war, during which, by the
way, she did splendid work among the sick and wounded, she sailed by the
same boat that was taking Gurn to England. Gurn also was a bit of a
popular hero just then: he had volunteered at the beginning of the war,
and came back with a sergeant's stripes and a medal for distinguished
conduct. Can Gurn and Lady Beltham have met and got to know each other?
It is certain that the lady's behaviour during the trial lent itself to
comment, if not exactly to scandal. She had odd collapses in the
presence of the murderer, collapses which were accounted for in very
various ways. Some people said that she was half out of her mind with
grief at the loss of her husband; others said that if she was mad, it
was over someone, over this vulgar criminal--martyr or accomplice,
perhaps. They even went so far as to allege that Lady Beltham had an
intrigue with Gurn!"

"Come! come!" the Colonel protested: "a great lady like Lady Beltham, so
religious and so austere? Absurd!"

"People say all sorts of things," said the Comte de Baral vaguely. He
turned to another subject. "Anyhow, the case caused a tremendous
sensation; Gurn's condemnation to death wa