estions you as though
you were in the witness-box and he a criminal barrister trying to trap
you. I don't know whether he behaves more civilly to ladies, but from our
experience of the man I should recommend you to keep out of his way."

"I shall," his sister replied.

"I should say no respecter of persons--or anything else," Kelson remarked
with a laugh.

"Let us hope he won't take it into his head to worry us," Miss Morriston
said with quiet indifference.

"I am sorry to see," Morriston observed later on when the ladies had
left them, "that the papers are beginning to take a sensational view of
the affair."

"Yes," Kelson responded; "we noticed that. It will be a nuisance for
you."

"The trouble has already begun," his host continued somewhat ruefully.
"We have had two or three reporters here to-day worrying the servants
with all sorts of absurd questions. It is, of course, all to be accounted
for by the medical evidence. That has put them on the scent of what they
will no doubt call a sensational development. So long as it looked like
nothing beyond suicide there was not so much likelihood of public
interest in the case."

"The police--" Gifford began.

"The police," Morriston took up the word, "are fairly nonplussed. It
seems the farther they get the less obvious does the suicide theory
become. Well, we shall see."

"In the meantime I'm afraid you and Miss Morriston are in for a heap of
undeserved annoyance," Kelson observed sympathetically.

"Yes," Morriston agreed gloomily; "I am sorry for Edith; she is plucky,
and feels it, I expect, far more than she cares to show."

When the men went into the drawing-room Muriel Tredworth made a sign to
Kelson; he joined her and, sitting down some distance apart from the
rest, they carried on in low tones what seemed to be a serious
conversation.

"I want to tell you of something extraordinary which has happened to me,
Hugh." Gifford just caught the words as the girl led the way out of
earshot. He had noticed that she had been rather preoccupied during
dinner, an unusual mood for so lively a girl, and now he could not help
watching the pair in the distance, she talking with an earnest, troubled
expression, and he listening to her story in grave wonderment, now and
again interposing a few words. Once they looked at Gifford, and he was
certain they were speaking of him.

With the gloom of a tragedy over the house the little party could not be
very festive; avoid