he hilt of the dagger,
intending to withdraw it, but could not bring herself to use the
necessary force."

"Why didn't she call out?" demanded Thornton. "It seems to me----"

"There is no accounting for actions arising out of sudden emotions. Lady
Eileen Meredith is as extraordinary a woman in her way as the Princess
Petrovska in hers. She had found a man murdered in her lover's
study--and she may have had a shrewd idea of the reason why she was
summoned there. You follow me? Probably as she stood there, hesitating
what to do, Grell returned. I think it likely that he stood by the door,
took in the situation quietly, and stole away with the impression that
she had killed Goldenburg. If she was bending over the dead man, that
was what he might naturally think.

"It is likely that he would make up his mind in an instant. To him the
fact that she had raised no outcry would be significant of her guilt.
She, let us suppose, stole away, having made no attempt to examine the
body closely and not daring to summon any one, for fear that Grell
should prove to be the murderer. He watched her go, already determined
to destroy the scent by taking the blame on his own shoulders.

"By the time she reached her own home reflection had shown her that
there was one possible chance that Grell might not be guilty. She rang
up the St. Jermyn's Club and asked for him. Fairfield answered,
declaring that his friend was in the club, but busy--too busy to talk to
the girl he was to marry next day, mark you. It is idle to suppose that
she did not appreciate the excuse as a flimsy one--one manufactured
perhaps for the purpose of an alibi. She must have gone to bed filled
with foreboding.

"All this is hypothesis. I am supposing that she never closely inspected
the features of the dead man. The next morning she is informed that
Grell was the victim. At once the lie that Fairfield told her assumed a
new aspect. She denounced him as the murderer. She dared not say that
she was the first to discover the body, for that would have meant
revealing that she knew he was being blackmailed.

"Then the Princess Petrovska paid her a visit and told her that Grell
was not dead but in hiding. There was nothing for it, in default of any
explanation, but to revert to the thought that he was the murderer. She
went to extreme lengths to help him--even to forgery. She believes him
guilty still; he believes her guilty."

"But Petrovska?" objected Thornton.

"I