of her white upturned face. As I
followed him into this closet he pushed the door wide, pulling out an
electric torch as he did so. By its light we saw almost at first glance
the coat and hat he professed to seek, lying in a corner of the floor,
beside an overturned chair.

"Good!" left my companion's lips. "That's all straight. You recognise
these garments?"

I nodded, speechless. A thousand memories rushed upon me at the sight of
the long plush coat which I had so often buttoned about her, with a
troubled heart. How her eyes would seek mine as we stood thus close
together, searching, searching for the old love or the fancied love of
which the ashes only remained. Torment, all torment to remember now, as
Hexford must have seen, if the keenness of his intelligence equalled that
of his eye at this moment.

The window which stood open was a small one,-a mere slit in the wall;
but it let in a stream of zero air and I saw Hexford shiver as he stepped
towards it and looked out. But I felt hot rather than cold, and when I
instinctively put my hand to my forehead, it came away wet.

V

A SCRAP OF PAPER

Look to the lady:--
And when we have our naked frailties hid,
That suffer in exposure, let us meet,
And question this most bloody piece of work,
To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us;
In the great hand of God I stand; and, thence,
Against the undivulg'd pretence I fight
Of treasonous malice.

_Macbeth_.

Shortly after this, a fresh relay of police arrived and I could hear the
whole house being ransacked. I had found my shoes, and was sitting in my
own private room before a fire which had been lighted for me on the
hearth. I was in a state of stupor now, and if my body shook, as it did
from time to time, it was not from cold, nor do I think from any special
horror of mind or soul (I felt too dull for that), but in response to the
shuddering pines which pressed up close to the house at this point and
soughed and tapped at the walls and muttered among themselves with an
insistence which I could not ignore, notwithstanding my many reasons for
self-absorption.

The storm, which had been exceedingly fierce while it lasted, had quieted
down to a steady fall of snow. Had its mission been to serve as a blanket
to this crime by wiping out from the old snow all tell-tale footsteps
and such other records as simplify cases of this kind for the detectives,
it could not have happened more _apropos_ to the even