seen the newspapers this
morning?" he inquired.

Without a doubt, her first thought was that the question savored of
impertinence. She looked at him with slightly upraised eyebrows. She was
slim, of medium complexion, with dark brown hair parted in the middle
and waving a little about her temples. She was irreproachably dressed,
from the tips of her patent shoes to the black feathers in her Paris
hat.

"The newspapers!" she repeated. "Why, no, I don't think that I have seen
them this morning. What have they to do with Mr. Hamilton Fynes?"

The clerk pointed to the open door of a small private office.

"If you will step this way for one moment, madam," he begged.

She tapped the floor with her foot and looked at him curiously.
Certainly the people around seemed to be taking some interest in their
conversation.

"Why should I?" she asked. "Cannot you answer my question here?"

"If madam will be so good," he persisted.

She shrugged her shoulders and followed him. Something in the man's
earnest tone and almost pleading look convinced her, at least, of
his good intentions. Besides, the interest which her question had
undoubtedly aroused amongst the bystanders was, to say the least of it,
embarrassing. He pulled the door to after them.

"Madam," he said, "there was a Mr. Hamilton Fynes who came over by the
Lusitania, and who had certainly engaged rooms in this hotel, but
he unfortunately, it seems, met with an accident on his way from
Liverpool."

Her manner changed at once. She began to understand what it all meant.
Her lips parted, her eyes were wide open.

"An accident?" she faltered.

He gently rolled a chair up to her. She sank obediently into it.

"Madam," he said, "it was a very bad accident indeed. I trust that Mr.
Hamilton Fynes was not a very intimate friend or a relative of yours. It
would perhaps be better for you to read the account for yourself."

He placed a newspaper in her hands. She read the first few lines and
suddenly turned upon him. She was white to the lips now, and there
was real terror in her tone. Yet if he had been in a position to have
analyzed the emotion she displayed, he might have remarked that there
was none of the surprise, the blank, unbelieving amazement which
might have been expected from one hearing for the first time of such a
calamity.

"Murdered!" she exclaimed. "Is this true?"

"It appears to be perfectly true, madam, I regret to say," the clerk
answered. "Even t