-boned but shapely, as she came in with her long dark
hair neatly plaited, it seemed to her husband--who had remained her
lover--that he saw before him the rosy-cheeked lass whom ten years
before he had met and claimed on the chilly shores of Loch Broom. By all
her neighbors Mrs. Kerry was looked upon as a proud, reserved person,
who had held herself much aloof since her husband had become Chief
Inspector; and the reputation enjoyed by Red Kerry was that of an
aggressive and uncompanionable man. Now here was a lover's meeting, not
lacking the shy, downward glance of dark eyes as steel-blue eyes flashed
frank admiration.

Kerry, who quarrelled with everybody except the Assistant Commissioner,
had only found one cause of quarrel with Mary. He was a devout Roman
Catholic, and for five years he had clung with the bull-dog tenacity
which was his to the belief that he could convert his wife to the
faith of Rome. She remained true to the Scottish Free Church, in whose
precepts she had been reared, and at the end of the five years Kerry
gave it up and admired her all the more for her Caledonian strength of
mind. Many and heated were the debates he had held with worthy Father
O'Callaghan respecting the validity of a marriage not solemnized by a
priest, but of late years he had grown reconciled to the parting of
the ways on Sunday morning; and as the early mass was over before
the Scottish service he was regularly to be seen outside a certain
Presbyterian chapel waiting for his heretical spouse.

He pulled her down on to his knee and kissed her.

"It's twelve hours since I saw you," he said.

She rested her arm on the back of the saddle-back chair, and her dark
head close beside Kerry's fiery red one.

"I kenned ye had a new case on," she said, "when it grew so late. How
long can ye stay?"

"An hour. No more. There's a lot to do before the papers come out in
the morning. By breakfast time all England, including the murderer, will
know I'm in charge of the case. I wish I could muzzle the Press."

"'Tis a murder, then? The Lord gi'e us grace. Ye'll be wishin' to tell
me?"

"Yes. I'm stumped!"

"Ye've time for a rest an' a smoke. Put ye're slippers on."

"I've no time for that, Mary."

She stood up and took the slippers from the hearth.

"Put ye're slippers on," she repeated firmly.

Kerry stooped without another word and began to unlace his brogues.
Meanwhile from a side-table his wife brought a silver tobacco-box a