choolroom when
the girls were at home. Sometimes she mopes there all day, only
speaking at meals. At others, she takes her dressing-bag and goes away
for two or three days--just as the fancy takes her. She absolutely
declines to have a maid."

"You mean that she's just a little--well, eccentric," I remarked
seriously.

"Yes, Doctor," answered the old lady, in a strange voice quite unusual
to her, and fixing her eyes upon me. "To tell the truth I fear her
mind is slowly giving way."

I remained silent, thinking deeply; and as I did not reply, she added:

"You will meet her at dinner. I shall not let her know you are here.
Then you can judge for yourself."

The situation was becoming more complicated. Since the conclusion of
the inquest I had seen nothing of the widow. She had stayed several
days with Ethelwynn at the Hennikers', then had visited her aunt near
Bath. That was all I knew of her movements, for, truth to tell, I held
her in some contempt for her giddy pleasure-seeking during her
husband's illness. Surely a woman who had a single spark of affection
for the man she had married could not go out each night to theatres
and supper parties, leaving him to the care of his man and a nurse.
That one fact alone proved that her professions of love had been
hollow and false.

While the twilight fell I sat in that long, sombre old room that
breathed an air of a century past, chatting with old Mrs. Mivart, and
learning from her full particulars of Mary's eccentricities. My
hostess told me of the proving of the will, which left the Devonshire
estate to her daughter, and of the slow action of the executors. The
young widow's actions, as described to me, were certainly strange, and
made me strongly suspect that she was not quite responsible for them.
That Mary's remorse was overwhelming was plain; and that fact aroused
within my mind a very strong suspicion of a circumstance I had not
before contemplated, namely, that during the life of her husband there
had been a younger male attraction. The acuteness of her grief seemed
proof of this. And yet, if argued logically, the existence of a secret
lover should cause her to congratulate herself upon her liberty.

The whole situation was an absolute enigma.

CHAPTER XVI.

REVEALS AN ASTOUNDING FACT.

Dinner was announced, and I took Mrs. Mivart into the room on the
opposite side of the big old-fashioned hall, a long, low-ceilinged
apartment the size of the drawi