en the little pismire,' you know, as Isaak
Walton tells us. Why, I have got substantial help from a
stamp-collector. And then reflect upon the motor-scorcher and the
earthworm and the blow-fly. All these lowly creatures play their parts
in the scheme of Nature; and shall we cast out the medical jurist as
nothing worth?"

I laughed dejectedly at my teacher's genial irony.

"What I meant," said I, "was that there is nothing to be done but
wait--perhaps for ever. I don't know why she isn't able to marry me, and
I mustn't ask her. She can't be married already."

"Certainly not. She told you explicitly that there was no man in the
case."

"Exactly. And I can think of no other valid reason, excepting that she
doesn't care enough for me. That would be a perfectly sound reason, but
then it would only be a temporary one, not the insuperable obstacle that
she assumes to exist, especially as we really got on excellently
together. I hope it isn't some confounded perverse feminine scruple. I
don't see how it could be; but women are most frightfully tortuous and
wrong-headed at times."

"I don't see," said Thorndyke, "why we should cast about for perversely
abnormal motives when there is a perfectly reasonable explanation
staring us in the face."

"Is there?" I exclaimed. "I see none."

"You are, not unnaturally, overlooking some of the circumstances that
affect Miss Bellingham; but I don't suppose she has failed to grasp
their meaning. Do you realise what her position really is? I mean with
regard to her uncle's disappearance?"

"I don't think I quite understand you."

"Well, there is no use in blinking the facts," said Thorndyke. "The
position is this: If John Bellingham ever went to his brother's house at
Woodford, it is nearly certain that he went there after his visit to
Hurst. Mind, I say '_if_ he went'; I don't say that I believe he did.
But it is stated that he appears to have gone there; and if he did go,
he was never seen alive afterwards. Now, he did not go in at the front
door. No one saw him enter the house. But there was a back gate, which
John Bellingham knew, and which had a bell which rang in the library.
And you will remember that, when Hurst and Jellicoe called, Mr.
Bellingham had only just come in. Previous to that time Miss Bellingham
had been alone in the library; that is to say, she was alone in the
library at the very time when John Bellingham is said to have made his
visit. That is the position, B