I
shall have to ask you to change the shade to a dull bluish gray.
If you will come to my office in the morning, I feel sure we can
soon arrange a climax which shall embody your own wishes and
mine. As to the effect--the after-effect--of her husband's death
on H. P.'s character, attention will be diverted from that by
the previous gossip about----

And there it ended.

The initials, H. P.--Helen Penn--were the tacks that fastened
conviction to Robert's consciousness; conviction of an intrigue of
long standing and unspeakable familiarities--all these verbal
obscurities were only too sickeningly familiar to him, fresh from the
Perry letters--but here was more!

Apparently a coolly plotted murder--one ray of light only his eyes
clung to--the "climax" was yet _in limine_!

In a well-built city house the insertion of a latchkey and opening of
a front door between ten and eleven o'clock at night are noises easily
covered by the urban roar of even one of the lateral streets of a
great city. Robert entered and closed the door with--he assured
himself--no greater minimum of noise than is instinctive toward
midnight with even a sober married man. Among all the emotions which
had seethed through his mind during the past few hours, a reaction was
at that moment in possession of him, in favor of his wife, who had
been to him a well of sweet water through all those years. If evil was
drawing near to her, why push her toward it? Surely a finer thing
would be to warn and protect her, to beat down underfoot his own
wounded _ego_ and win her back!

The electric light in the hall was burning, and he went directly to
the library. Touching an electric button near the door, the room was
flooded with light, and there before his weary eyes, hanging over the
back of his Morris chair, was--Heaven help him!--a pair of long
delft-blue silk stockings! Robert's agony was black upon him, his mind
once more full of crawling, writhing suspicions; his mouth and throat
were parched, his pulse beats filled the world.

Then into the silence fell Helen's laugh from the floor above, a long
peal of mirth that spoke clearly of companionship. He had not made a
life study of psychic differentiation for nothing--Helen was not
alone! From that instant, all pretenses were abandoned, Robert was a
sleuthhound on a keen scent.

With his head well forward, he crept up the carpeted stairway. The
upper hall light was burning low; from hi