s it the will?
But that was already gone. Was it to remove some distinguishing clue
which she feared might be found to connect _her_ with this crime?

What was it?

CHAPTER XI

A NEW CLUE

It was a silent, horror-haunted breakfast-table that morning at which,
however, every member of the family appeared, as though driven
downstairs for the mere comfort of being among familiar things, and with
one another, in this time of tragedy. Cleek partook of breakfast with
them, but the black looks which Ross directed at him would have made a
weaker man lose his appetite.

He smiled to himself now and again, missing nothing of what went on
about him, yet seeming, indeed, to see nothing at all but his own plate,
which was plentifully filled in response to a hearty appetite.

He found Cynthia Debenham a bonny, red-cheeked country girl of the best
type, athletic and muscular as a boy, and very obvious in her
expressions, as just such a normally healthy girl of her generation
usually is. Her cousin, Catherine Dowd, was on the contrary a
black-haired witch with slanting eyes and close mouth and the finely
chiselled nostrils of a thoroughbred mare. He did not take to her upon
sight. There was so much concealed behind those closed lips, so much
that was secretive in the whole type of her. But she was obviously very
fond of them all, and upon excellent terms with every member of that
ill-assorted family. So that at least Miss Dowd of the black locks was
endowed with the mixing spirit, which was very much in her favour.

Cyril, large-eyed and serious, sent his glance roving from one face to
another, as though seeking for the secret of this horrible thing that
had taken place here in the midst of them, and Cleek could not refrain
from a pang of pity for the white-faced boy. He looked so frightened and
miserable, and now and again his eyes roved up into Ross's face with
something of inquiry in them, as though he felt that this big
stepbrother must surely hold the key to the tragic happenings of last
night.

Ross, indeed, ate nothing and said less, although his fiancee did all in
her power to bring some sort of a smile into his morose face. While upon
the other side of him Maud Duggan sat in a silence which was fraught
with all the dreadful happenings of that dreadful night, showing a face
to the world which spoke mutely of the fact that sleep had not visited
her during the long dark hours. Lady Paula alone tried to make some