k a little black."

They found the three women in the drawing-room. Lydia, looking very
white, came to meet them.

"What happened?" she asked, and then she guessed from his face. "He's
not dead?" she gasped.

Jack nodded. All the time his eyes were on the other girl. Her
beautiful lips were drooped a little. There was a look of pain and
sorrow in her eyes that caught his breath.

"Did he shoot himself?" she asked in a low voice.

Jack regarded her coldly.

"The only thing that I am certain about," and Lydia winced at the
cruelty in his voice, "is that you did not shoot him, Miss Briggerland."

"How dare you!" flamed Jean Briggerland. The quick flush that came to
her cheek was the only other evidence of emotion she betrayed.

"I dare say a lot," said Jack curtly. "You asked me if it is a case of
suicide, and I tell you that it is not--it is a case of murder. James
Meredith was found with a revolver clutched in his right hand. He was
shot through the left temple, and if you'll explain to me how any man,
holding a pistol in a normal way, can perform that feat, I will accept
your theory of suicide."

There was a dead silence.

"Besides," Jack went on, with a little shrug, "poor Jimmy had no
pistol."

Jean Briggerland had dropped her eyes, and stood there with downcast
head and compressed lips. Presently she looked up.

"I know how you feel, Mr. Glover," she said gently. "I can well
understand, believing such dreadful things about me as you do, that you
must hate me."

Her mouth quivered and her voice grew husky with sorrow.

"I loved James Meredith," she said, "and he loved me."

"He loved you well enough to marry somebody else," said Jack Glover, and
Lydia was shocked.

"Mr. Glover," she said reproachfully, "do you think it is right to say
these things, with poor Mr. Meredith lying dead?"

He turned slowly toward her, and she saw in his humorous eyes a hardness
that she had not seen before.

"Miss Briggerland has told us that I hate her," he said in an even
voice, "and she spoke nothing but the truth. I hate her perhaps beyond
understanding--Mrs. Meredith." He emphasised the words, and the girl
winced. "And one day, if the Circumstantialists spare me----"

"The Circumstantialists," said Jean Briggerland slowly. "I don't quite
understand you."

Jack Glover laughed, and it was not a pleasant laugh.

"Perhaps you will," he said shortly. "As to your loving poor Jim--well,
you know best. I am trying