Mona. "Yes, yes--please go on," she urged.

"When I wrote that letter I had forgotten what I had done the day before
the race. I had gone into my husband's room to find some things I needed
from the drawer of his dressing-table; and far at the back of a drawer
I found a crumpled-up roll of ten-pound notes. It was fifty pounds
altogether. I took the notes--"

She paused a moment, and the room became very still. Both her listeners
were sure that they were nearing a thing of deep importance.

In a lower voice Mona continued: "I don't know what possessed me, but
perhaps it was that the things he did of which I disapproved most had
got a hold on me in spite of myself. I said to myself: 'I am going to
the Derby. I will take the fifty pounds, and I'll put it on a horse for
Shiel.' He had talked so much to my brother about Flamingo, and I had
seen him go wrong so often, that I had a feeling if I put it on a horse
that Shiel particularly banned, it would probably win. He had been wrong
nearly every time for two years. It was his money, and if it won, it
would make him happy; and if it didn't win, well, he didn't know the
money existed--I was sure of that; and, anyhow, I could replace it. I
put it on a horse he condemned utterly, but of which one or two people
spoke well. You know what happened to Flamingo. While at Epsom I heard
from friends that Shiel was present at the race, though he had said he
would not go. Later I learned that he had lost heavily. Then I saw him
in the distance paying out money and giving bills to the bookmakers. It
made me very angry. I don't think I was quite sane. Most women are like
that at times."

"As I said," remarked the Young Doctor, his face mirthfully alive. Here
was a situation indeed.

"So I wrote him that letter," Mona went on. "I had forgotten all about
the money I put on the outsider which won the race. As you know, I was
called away to my sick sister that evening, and the money I won with
Shiel's fifty pounds was not paid to me till after Shiel had gone."

"How much was it?" asked Kitty breathlessly.

"Four thousand pounds."

Kitty exclaimed so loudly that she smothered her mouth with a hand.
"Why, he only needs for the syndicate two thousand pounds--ten thousand
dollars," she said excitedly. "But what's the good of it, if he can't
lay his hand on it by midnight to-night!"

"He can do so," was Mona's quick reply. "I was going to tell him that,
but the lawyer came, and--"

Kit