last
thoughts; or it might be that he lay already dead.

Later issues contained much fuller reports. The man who found the body
had explained his behaviour in going up to the unused room, and it
relieved the dark affair with a touch of comedy. Before coming to work,
he had quarrelled with his wife, and, rather than go home in the early
hours of the morning, he hit upon the idea of finding a sleeping-place
here on the premises, to which he could slink unnoticed. 'It's little
enough sleep I get in my own house,' was his remark to the reporter who
won his confidence. Clubmen were hilarious over this incident,
speculating as to the result of its publication on the indiscreet man's
domestic troubles.

It was not unremarked that a long time elapsed between the discovery of
the suicide and its being heard of by anyone who had an interest in
making it generally known. With the exception of two persons, all who
were engaged upon the production of the newspaper went home in complete
ignorance of what had happened, so cautiously and successfully was the
situation dealt with by the sub-editor and his informant. When, after
an examination by the doctor, who had been summoned in all secrecy, it
became necessary to communicate with the police, the employees had all
gone away, and the printed sheets had been conveyed to the distributing
agents. Naturally, the subeditor of _Stock and Share_' preserved a
certain reticence in the matter; but one could hardly be mistaken in
assuming that the directors of the Britannia Company--two or three of
them, at all events--had an opportunity of surveying their position
long before the hour when this momentous news got abroad.

With regard to the company's affairs, only conjecture could be as yet
indulged in. In view of the immediate stoppage of business, it was
pretty safe to surmise that alarming disclosures awaited the public. No
one, of course, would be justified in prejudging the case against the
unhappy man who, amid seemingly brilliant circumstances, had been
driven to so desperate an act.

And so on, and so on, in one journal after another, in edition upon
edition. Harvey Rolfe read them till he was weary, listened to the
gossip of the club till he was nauseated. He went home at length with a
headache, and, having carefully avoided contact with Buncombe or Mrs
Handover, made an effort to absorb himself in a volume of Gregorovius,
which was at present his study. The attempt was futile. Ta