didn't invent it? Suppose it was a fact?"

"Have you any purpose in subjecting me to this needless torture?"

"I have a purpose, and I'm sorry if it involves torture; but I assure
you it isn't needless. I must get to the bottom of this thing. I've
asked you to marry me; and I must know if my future wife--"

"But I'm not--your future wife."

"That remains to be seen. I can come to no decision--"

"But I can."

"That must wait. The point before us is this: Did, or did not, George
Eveleth kill himself?"

"He did not."

"You must understand that it would prove nothing if he did."

"It would prove, or go far to prove, what you said just now--that I had
made his life not worth the living."

"His money troubles may have counted for something in that. What it
would do is this: it would help to corroborate Bienville's word
against--yours."

"Fortunately there are means of proving that I'm right. I can't tell you
exactly what they are; but I know that, in France, when people die the
registers tell just what they died of."

"I've already sent for the necessary information. I've done even more
than that. I couldn't wait for the slow process of the mails. I cabled
this morning to Grimston, one of my Paris partners, to wire me the cause
of George Eveleth's death, as officially registered. This is his reply."

He held up the envelope Diane had placed on the desk earlier in the
evening.

"Why don't you open it?" she asked, in a whisper of suspense.

"I've been afraid to. I've been afraid that it would prove him right in
the one detail in which I'm able to put his word to the test. I've been
hoping against hope that you would clear yourself; but if this is in his
favor--"

"Open it," she pleaded.

With the silver dagger she had laid ready to his hand he ripped up the
envelope, and drew out the paper.

"Read it," he said, passing it to her, without unfolding it.

Though it contained but one word, Diane took a long time to decipher it.
For minutes she stared at it, as though the power of comprehension had
forsaken her. Again and again she lifted her eyes to his, in sheer
bewilderment, only to drop them then once more on the all but blank
sheet in her hand. At last it seemed as if her fingers had no more
strength to hold it, and she let it flutter to the floor.

"He was right?"

The question came in a hoarse undertone, but Diane had no voice in which
to reply. She could only nod her head in dumb assent.

It gr