t station to some very quiet neighbourhood in which
she had taken a house beforehand. Now where could you possibly find a
quieter neighbourhood than this?"

"I don't see that you've proved your point, J. J. There are a lot of
other places for which you might start from Euston."

"Not so many quiet neighbourhoods. Think of where the London and
North-Western Railway runs. Lancashire! You wouldn't call Bolton a
quiet neighbourhood, I suppose. North Wales! You know what it is at
this season of the year, thick with holiday people. No. You may take
it for certain that if she left Euston she came to Ireland. Now all
English people head straight for the west as soon as they land in this
country, especially those who have any kind of a past that they are
anxious to keep dark. Dublin and Wicklow are just as thick with people
as England is. Nobody ever stops half-way across the country.
Besides, there wasn't another woman in the train with me who could
possibly have been Mrs. Lorimer."

Major Kent rose from his chair and knocked the ashes out of his pipe.

"I don't suppose, J. J., that it's any use telling you that you're
going to make an ass of yourself."

"Not a bit, because it isn't true. I'm going to proceed in the most
circumspect and cautious manner. Not that I'm the least afraid of
making an ass of myself. I should never do that under any
circumstances. But because I have a conscience and I am afraid of
doing a grave injustice, I am going to convince myself first of all
that this fellow Simpkins really deserves to be killed. I admit the
force of all you said about him last night, especially that part about
the heating of the church; but it's a serious thing to condemn a man to
death. It's a thing that you can't undo again once you've done it. I
must see the man myself before I take any further steps."

"You can't have him here, J. J. He's a horrid little cad, and I won't
have him inside this house."

"I'm not asking you to, at present. Later on if it becomes necessary
in the interests of justice to patch up some appearance of a
reconciliation between you and him I shall, of course, ask him here;
but in the meanwhile--"

"You may entertain him yourself, if you do."

"I may. But that won't deter me from doing my duty. You haven't had
the education in philosophy and literature, Major, that you ought to
have had; but the years that you spent in the army ought to have taught
you that no amount o