led her over to a chair
by the window in the summer twilight, and took one quivering hand in
hers. "I have been telling Dr. Cumberledge, Lina, about what I most fear
for your dear brother, darling; and... I think... he agrees with me."

Mrs. Mallet turned to me, with hollow eyes, still preserving her tragic
calm. "I am afraid of it, too," she said, her drawn lips tremulous. "Dr.
Cumberledge, we must get him back! We must induce him to face it!"

"And yet," I answered, slowly, turning it over in my own mind; "he
has run away at first. Why should he do that if he means--to commit
suicide?" I hated to utter the words before that broken soul; but there
was no way out of it.

Hilda interrupted me with a quiet suggestion. "How do you know he has
run away?" she asked. "Are you not taking it for granted that, if he
meant suicide, he would blow his brains out in his own house? But surely
that would not be the Le Geyt way. They are gentle-natured folk; they
would never blow their brains out or cut their throats. For all we know,
he may have made straight for Waterloo Bridge,"--she framed her lips to
the unspoken words, unseen by Mrs. Mallet,--"like his uncle Alfred."

"That is true," I answered, lip-reading. "I never thought of that
either."

"Still, I do not attach importance to this idea," she went on. "I have
some reason for thinking he has run away... elsewhere; and if so, our
first task must be to entice him back again."

"What are your reasons?" I asked, humbly. Whatever they might be, I knew
enough of Hilda Wade by this time to know that she had probably good
grounds for accepting them.

"Oh, they may wait for the present," she answered. "Other things are
more pressing. First, let Lina tell us what she thinks of most moment."

Mrs. Mallet braced herself up visibly to a distressing effort. "You have
seen the body, Dr. Cumberledge?" she faltered.

"No, dear Mrs. Mallet, I have not. I came straight from Nathaniel's. I
have had no time to see it."

"Dr. Sebastian has viewed it by my wish--he has been so kind--and he
will be present as representing the family at the post-mortem. He notes
that the wound was inflicted with a dagger--a small ornamental Norwegian
dagger, which always lay, as I know, on the little what-not by the blue
sofa."

I nodded assent. "Exactly; I have seen it there."

"It was blunt and rusty--a mere toy knife--not at all the sort of weapon
a man would make use of who designed to commit a delibe