died.

"Well?" Helen enquired.

"There'll have to be an inquest," said St. John.

Why had she done it? He shrugged his shoulders. Why do people kill
themselves? Why do the lower orders do any of the things they do do?
Nobody knows. They sat in silence.

"The bell's run fifteen minutes and they're not down," said Helen at
length.

When they appeared, St. John explained why it had been necessary for
him to come to luncheon. He imitated Evelyn's enthusiastic tone as she
confronted him in the smoking-room. "She thinks there can be nothing
_quite_ so thrilling as mathematics, so I've lent her a large work in
two volumes. It'll be interesting to see what she makes of it."

Rachel could now afford to laugh at him. She reminded him of Gibbon;
she had the first volume somewhere still; if he were undertaking the
education of Evelyn, that surely was the test; or she had heard that
Burke, upon the American Rebellion--Evelyn ought to read them both
simultaneously. When St. John had disposed of her argument and had
satisfied his hunger, he proceeded to tell them that the hotel was
seething with scandals, some of the most appalling kind, which had
happened in their absence; he was indeed much given to the study of his
kind.

"Evelyn M., for example--but that was told me in confidence."

"Nonsense!" Terence interposed.

"You've heard about poor Sinclair, too?"

"Oh, yes, I've heard about Sinclair. He's retired to his mine with a
revolver. He writes to Evelyn daily that he's thinking of committing
suicide. I've assured her that he's never been so happy in his life,
and, on the whole, she's inclined to agree with me."

"But then she's entangled herself with Perrott," St. John continued;
"and I have reason to think, from something I saw in the passage, that
everything isn't as it should be between Arthur and Susan. There's a
young female lately arrived from Manchester. A very good thing if it
were broken off, in my opinion. Their married life is something too
horrible to contemplate. Oh, and I distinctly heard old Mrs. Paley
rapping out the most fearful oaths as I passed her bedroom door. It's
supposed that she tortures her maid in private--it's practically certain
she does. One can tell it from the look in her eyes."

"When you're eighty and the gout tweezes you, you'll be swearing like
a trooper," Terence remarked. "You'll be very fat, very testy, very
disagreeable. Can't you imagine him--bald as a coot, with a pair of
s