bedroom, looking down on the dead man, swathed in
his graveclothes, with a wreath of flowers from Mrs. Pendleton on his
breast. Removing this symbol of human pretense against the reality of
things, Charles Turold bared the arm of the corpse, and pointing to it
exclaimed--

"Could those marks have been made by Sisily?"

In his examination of the marks thus revealed to him, Mr. Brimsdown had
the strange feeling that their existence was, in some way, the
justification of the dead man's summons to him.

"Do you know how these marks were made?" he said, turning to Charles.

"I do not. But I do know that they prove that Sisily is innocent."

Charles Turold spoke defiantly, but there was a slight note of
interrogation in his voice which the lawyer chose to ignore.

"They were made by a man's hand," the young man persisted, looking
earnestly at him.

"Do the police know of them?"

"That I cannot tell you."

Another question was in Mr. Brimsdown's mind, but the young man's haggard
face, the mingled misery and expectation of his glance, checked the
utterance of it. He had the idea that Charles's manner suggested something
more--some revelation yet to come. But the young man did not speak.

"Is this all you wanted to show me?" Mr. Brimsdown hinted.

"Is it not enough?"

"I do not see that it throws any light on Miss Turold's disappearance. Can
you explain that?"

"How can I explain what I do not know?" Charles was silent for a moment,
then added bitterly. "It may be because of her father's inhuman conduct."

"Robert Turold is dead--do not use that tone in speaking of him," the
lawyer counselled.

Charles turned on him a peculiar look. "Do you think the world is the
loser by his death?" he said.

Mr. Brimsdown was moved out of himself to declare that the death of Robert
Turold was a distinct loss to the world. "He was a wonderful man--a
notable personality," he said emphatically.

Charles gave him a moody glance, and there fell upon them a silence so
complete that the dead man in the bed seemed to share in it. The lawyer
had an acute perception of the fact that he had handled the situation
badly. He intuitively realized that he had put himself into the opposite
camp to Charles's sympathies by the uncompromising partisanship of his
last remarks. He was convinced that until that moment, Charles had been
meditating the question of some further disclosure. Mr. Brimsdown
regretted afterwards that he made no effort t