ed Roger Unthank?"

The lawyer set down the decanter and coughed.

"A plain answer," Dominey insisted.

Mr. Mangan adapted himself to the situation. He was beginning to
understand his client.

"I am perfectly certain, Sir Everard," he confessed, "that there isn't
a soul in these parts who isn't convinced of it. They believe that there
was a fight and that you had the best of it."

"Forgive me," Dominey continued, "if I seem to ask unnecessary
questions. Remember that I spent the first portion of my exile in Africa
in a very determined effort to blot out the memory of everything that
had happened to me earlier in life. So that is the popular belief?"

"The popular belief seems to match fairly well with the facts," Mr.
Mangan declared, wielding the decanter again in view of his client's
more reasonable manner. "At the time of your unfortunate visit to the
Hall Miss Felbrigg was living practically alone at the Vicarage after
her uncle's sudden death there, with Mrs. Unthank as housekeeper. Roger
Unthank's infatuation for her was patent to the whole neighbourhood and
a source of great annoyance in Miss Felbrigg. I am convinced that at no
time did Lady Dominey give the young man the slightest encouragement."

"Has any one ever believed the contrary?" Dominey demanded.

"Not a soul," was the emphatic reply. "Nevertheless, when you came down,
fell in love with Miss Felbrigg and carried her off, every one felt that
there would be trouble."

"Roger Unthank was a lunatic," Dominey pronounced deliberately. "His
behaviour from the first was the behaviour of a madman."

"The Eugene Aram type of village schoolmaster gradually drifting into
positive insanity," Mangan acquiesced. "So far, every one is agreed. The
mystery began when he came back from his holidays and heard the news."

"The sequel was perfectly simple," Dominey observed. "We met at the
north end of the Black Wood one evening, and he attacked me like a
madman. I suppose I had to some extent the best of it, but when I got
back to the Hall my arm was broken, I was covered with blood, and half
unconscious. By some cruel stroke of fortune, almost the first person
I saw was Lady Dominey. The shock was too much for her--she
fainted--and--"

"And has never been quite herself since," the lawyer concluded. "Most
tragic!"

"The cruel part of it was," Dominey went on, standing before the window,
his hands clasped behind his back, "that my wife from that moment
develo