to
confide in you. When you have heard what I have to say you will
understand how hard it is. It relates to Mr. Philip, sir. Since his
illness I have been worried about his health, because he is so changed
that I feared he might go mad with grief. He hardly speaks a word to
anybody, but sometimes I have seen him muttering to himself. The night
before he went away with Mr. Musard he did not come down to dinner. Miss
Heredith was going to send a servant to his room in case he had not
heard the gong, but I offered to go myself. When I reached his bedroom,
I heard the most awful sobbing possible to imagine. Then, through the
partly open door, I heard Mr. Philip call on God Almighty to make
somebody suffer as he had suffered. He mentioned a name--"

"Whose name?"

The butler looked fearfully towards the closed door, as though he
suspected eavesdroppers, and then brought it out with an effort:

"Captain Nepcote, sir."

Colwyn had expected that name. Nepcote's statement on the previous night
had led him to believe that Philip Heredith had suspected Nepcote's
relations with his wife, but could not bring himself to disclose that
when he sought assistance. It was Colwyn's experience that nothing was
so rare as complete frankness from people who came to him for help. It
was part of the ingrained reserve of the English mind, the sensitive
dread of gossip or scandal, to keep something back at such moments. The
average person was so swaddled by limitations of intelligence as to be
incapable of understanding that suppressed facts were bound to come to
light sooner or later if they affected the matter of the partial
confidence. Of course, there was sometimes the alternative of a
reticence which was intended to mislead. If that entered into the
present case it was an additional complication.

"What interpretation did you place on these overheard words?" he asked
the butler. "Did you suppose that they referred to the murder?"

"Well, sir--" the butler hesitated, as if at a loss to express himself.
"It was not for me to draw conclusions, sir, but I could not help
thinking over what I had heard. I know Mr. Philip believed the young
woman to be innocent, and--Mrs. Heredith was shot with Captain Nepcote's
revolver."

"I see. You had no other thought in your mind?"

"No, sir. What else could I think?"

The butler's meek tones conveyed such an inflection of surprise that
Colwyn was convinced that he, at all events, had no suspicion