have been murdered here has gone. And for the rest, I saw you here
with Louis and I heard your conversation less than an hour ago."

"You saw us?" she gasped.

"From the transept there," I answered, pointing towards it. "I was
brought into that room to personate your uncle, to receive an attack
which was meant for him--a very clever scheme! I was drugged, and was
to have lain there to cover this fellow's crime. But there, I don't
suppose that I need tell you any of these things!" I added brutally.

She looked at me with horror.

"You do not believe--" she gasped.

"Oh! I believe nothing," I answered,--"nothing at all! Every word I
have been told by both of you is a lie! Your lives are lies! God
knows why I should ever have believed otherwise!" I said, looking at
her.

"Let me go," Louis pleaded, "and you shall hear the truth."

"I shall be more likely to feel the knife you have in your pocket," I
answered contemptuously, for I had seen his left hand struggling
downward for the last few moments. "Oh! I'll let you go! I have no
interest in any of you,--no interest in your cursed conspiracy,
whatever it may be! Keep your story. I don't care to hear it. Lie
there and talk to your accomplice!"

I sent him reeling across the room till he fell in the corner. Then I
walked out, closing the sitting-room door behind me,--out into the
corridor and up the stairs into my own room. Then I locked and bolted
my own door and looked at my watch. It was a quarter to three. I took
a Bradshaw from my bookcase, packed a few clothes myself, set an alarm
clock for seven o'clock in the morning, and turned into bed. I told
myself that I would not think. I told myself that there was no such
person in the world as Felicia, that she had never lived, that she was
only part of this nightmare from which I was freeing myself! I told
myself that I would go to sleep, and I stayed awake until
daylight. All the time there was only one thought in my brain!

CHAPTER XXI

A CHANGE OF PLANS

At a few minutes past nine on the following morning, I was standing
outside the front door of the Court watching the piling of my luggage
on to a four-wheel cab. The hall-porter stood by my side,
superintending the efforts of his myrmidons.

"You had better send my letters on," I told him. "I am going down into
Norfolk for several weeks,--perhaps longer."

"Very good, sir," he answered. "By the bye," he added, turning away,
"this morning's letters