an's bread and salt and then betray him.

Sandal went on as though he hadn't heard him. "That actress is a jolly
little woman," said he. "I've seen her at the Frivolity--a ripping fine
singer and dancer she is. But those other ladies?"

"Mrs. and Miss Krill."

The young lord stopped short in the High Street. "Where have I heard
that name?" he said, looking up to the stars; "somewhere--in the country
maybe. I go down sometimes to the Hall--my father's place. I don't
suppose you'd know it. It's three miles from Christchurch."

"In Hants," said Paul, feeling he was on the verge of a discovery.

"Yes. Have you been there?"

"No. But I have heard of the place. There's an hotel there called 'The
Red Pig,' which I thought--"

"Ha!" cried young Sandal, stopping again, and with such a shout that
passers-by thought he was drunk. "I remember the name. 'The Red Pig'; a
woman called Krill kept that."

"She can hardly be the same," said Paul, not wishing to betray the lady.

"No. I guess not. She'd hardly have the cheek to sit down with me if she
did. But Krill. Yes, I remember--my aunt, you know."

"Your aunt?"

"Yes," said Sandal, impatiently, "she was murdered, or committed suicide
in that 'Red Pig' place. Rachel Sandal--with her unlucky opals."

"Her unlucky opals! What do you mean?"

"Why, she had a serpent set with opals she wore as a brooch, and it
brought her bad luck."

CHAPTER XVI

Sylvia's theory

It was close upon midnight when Paul reached his garret. Sandal drove
him in a hansom as far as Piccadilly Circus, and from that place Beecot
walked through Oxford Street to Bloomsbury. He had not been able to
extract further information of any importance from the young lord. It
appeared that Lady Rachel Sandal, in love with an inferior, had
quarrelled with her father, and had walked to Christchurch one night
with the intention of joining the man she wished to marry in London. But
the night was stormy and Lady Rachel was a frail woman. She took refuge
in "The Red Pig," intending to go the next morning. But during the night
she was found strangled in the bedroom she had hired. Sandal could give
no details, as the events happened before he was born, and he had only
heard scraps of the dreadful story.

"Some people say Lady Rachel was murdered," explained Sandal, "and
others that she killed herself. But the opal brooch, which she wore,
certainly disappeared. But there was such a scandal over the affair t