tford was in the club and was told
that I should find him in the smoking room, and I did."

"How long did your interview with Mr. de Mountford last?"

"About three quarters of an hour I should say."

"And it was of a perfectly amicable nature?"

"Of a perfectly indifferent nature," corrected Luke.

"And after the interview what did you do?"

"I walked out of the club."

"But after that?"

"I walked about."

"In the fog?" This in an undisguised tone of surprise.

"In the fog."

"In what direction?"

"Really," here rejoined Luke with a sudden show of resentment,
"Mr.--er--Travers, I fail to see how my movements can be of concern to
you."

He was certainly not going to tell this man that he had made his way
through the fog as far as the residence of the Danish Minister, and
that he had walked up and down for over an hour outside that house
like a love-sick fool, like a doting idiot, because he knew that if he
waited patiently he would presently hear the faint echo of a
well-trained contralto voice whose mellowness would come to him
through the closed windows of the brilliantly illumined mansion, and
would ease for a moment the wild longing of his heart.

What the man near him said in answer to his retort he really could not
say. He had not heard, for in a moment his thoughts had flashed back
to that lonely vigil in the fog, to the sound of her voice, which
came, oh! so faintly, to his ear, and then to the first breath of
gossip that came from the passers-by, the coachmen and chauffeurs who
had drawn up in long rows along the curb, the idlers who always hang
about outside in the cold and the damp when a society function is in
progress, the pickers-up of unconsidered trifles, lost or willingly
bestowed.

From these he had first heard the news: vaguely at first, for he did
not--could not--realize that the amazing thing which was being
commented on and discussed had anything to do with him. The talk was
of murder, and soon the name of de Mountford was mentioned. The
details he got were very confused, and the open allusions as to "seek
whom the crime will benefit" never really reached his brain, which was
almost numb with the violence of the shock.

His first thought after that was to go and see Uncle Rad: he had, for
the moment, almost forgotten Louisa. Every other interest in life sank
to nothingness beside the one clear duty: Uncle Rad would be alone;
the awful news must be broken very gradually to Uncl