e away and disappear in
death. Come and look at him."

"No, no."

"Weakness! Death restores to every man his individuality. No two men
are like in death, though they may be like in life. Well. It comes to
this. We are going to bury Lord Harry Norland to-morrow, and we must
have a photograph of him as he lay on his deathbed."

"Well?"

"Well, my friend, go upstairs to your own room, and I will follow with
the camera."

In a quarter of an hour he was holding the glass against his sleeve.

"Admirable!" he said. "The cheek a little sunken--that was the effect
of the chalk and the adjustment of the shadows--the eyes closed, the
face white, the hands composed. It is admirable! Who says that we
cannot make the sun tell lies?"

As soon as he could get a print of the portrait, he gave it to Lord
Harry.

"There," he said, "we shall get a better print to-morrow. This is the
first copy."

He had mounted it on a frame of card, and had written under it the name
once borne by the dead man, with the date of his death. The picture
seemed indeed that of a dead man. Lord Harry shuddered.

"There," he said, "everything else has been of no use to us--the
presence of the sick man--the suspicions of the nurse--his death--even
his death--has been of no use to us. We might have been spared the
memory--the awful memory--of this death!"

"You forget, my English friend, that a dead body was necessary for us.
We had to bury somebody. Why not the man Oxbye?"

CHAPTER LIII

THE WIFE'S RETURN

OF course Mrs. Vimpany was quite right. Iris had gone back to her
husband. She arrived, in fact, at the cottage in the evening just
before dark--in the falling day, when some people are more than
commonly sensitive to sights and sounds, and when the eyes are more apt
than at other times to be deceived by strange appearances. Iris walked
into the garden, finding no one there. She opened the door with her own
key and let herself in. The house struck her as strangely empty and
silent. She opened the dining-room door: no one was there. Like all
French dining-rooms, it was used for no other purpose than for eating,
and furnished with little more than the barest necessaries. She closed
the door and opened that of the salon: that also was empty. She called
her husband: there was no answer. She called the name of the cook:
there was no answer. It was fortunate that she did not open the door of
the spare room, for there lay the body of the dead