may
come forward at any moment who have."

Arthur glanced towards her triumphantly.

"What did I tell you?" he exclaimed.

She looked timidly across at Mabane.

"The other gentleman won't mind?" she asked timidly.

Mabane smiled at her, and his smile was a revelation even to us who knew
him so well.

"My dear young lady," he said, "you will be more than welcome. I have
just been telling Arnold that your coming will make the world a
different place for us."

The girl's smile was illumining. It seemed to include us all. She held
out both her hands. Mabane seized one and bent over it with the air of a
courtier. The other was offered to me. Arthur was content to beam upon
us all from the background. At that precise moment came a tap at the
door. Mrs. Burdett brought in a telegram.

I tore it open, and hastily reading it, passed it on to Mabane. He
hesitated for a moment, and then turned gravely to Isobel.

"Major Delahaye will not trouble you any more," he said. "He died in the
hospital an hour ago."

CHAPTER VIII

"A shade more to the right, please. There, just as you are now! Don't
move! In five minutes I shall have finished for the day."

Isobel smiled.

"I think that your five minutes," she said, "last sometimes for a very
long time. But I am not tired--no, not at all. I can stay like this if
you wish until the light goes."

"You are splendid," Mabane murmured. "The best sitter--oh, hang it,
who's that?"

"There is certainly some one at the door," Isobel remarked.

Mabane paused in his work to shout fiercely, "Come in!" I too looked up
from my writing. A woman was ushered into the room--a woman dressed in
fashionable mourning, of medium height, and with a wealth of fair,
fluffy hair, which seemed to mock the restraining black bands. Mrs.
Burdett, visibly impressed, lingered in the background.

The woman paused and looked around. She looked at me, and the pen
slipped from my nerveless fingers. I rose to my feet.

"Eil--Lady Delahaye!" I exclaimed.

She inclined her head. Her demeanour was cold, almost belligerent.

"I am glad to find you here, Arnold Greatson," she said. "You are a
friend, I believe, of the man who murdered my husband?"

"You have been misinformed, Lady Delahaye," I answered quietly. "I was
not even an acquaintance of his. We met that day for the first time."

By the faintest possible curl of the lips she expressed her contemptuous
disbelief.

"Ah!" she said. "I re