epared for the public ordeal.

Though she knew it all, she listened attentively to every word which
Frederick Power uttered, lest her father had--in telling her--omitted
some important detail. She heard again at full length the account of
Luke's visit to the Veterans' Club, his desire to see Philip de
Mountford, the interview in the smoking room behind closed doors, the
angry words of obvious, violent quarrelling.

Then Luke's return to the lobby, his departure, the final taunt spoken
by Philip and the look of murder in his eye, sworn to by the hall
porter. She listened to it all, and heard without flinching the last
question which the coroner put to the witness:

"Did Mr. de Mountford's visitor carry a stick when he left the club?"

"'E 'ad a stick, sir, when 'e came," was the porter's reply, "and I
'anded it to 'im myself when 'e left."

Louisa had been sitting all this while at the extreme end of the row
of chairs, right up against the wall. She sat with her back to the
wall, her head leaning against it, her hands hidden within the folds
of a monumental sable muff lying idly in her lap. She had her father
on her right, and beyond him Mr. Dobson and his clerk; she saw them
all in profile as they looked straight before them, at the coroner and
at each succeeding witness.

Luke sat farther on, and, as he was slightly turned toward her, she
could watch his face all the while that she listened to the hall
porter's evidence. It was perfectly still, the features as if moulded
in wax; the eyes which actually were a clear hazel appeared quite dark
and almost as if they had sunk back within their circling lids. He sat
with arms folded, and not a muscle in face or body moved. No
stone-carved image could have been more calm, none could have been so
mysterious.

Louisa tried to understand and could not. She watched him, not caring
whether the empty-headed fools who sat all round saw her watching him
or not.

When the coroner asked the hall porter about the stick and the man
gave his reply, Luke turned and met Louisa's fixed gaze. The
marble-like stillness of his face remained unchanged, only the eyes
seemed as if they darkened visibly. At least to her it seemed as if a
velvety shadow crept over them, an inscrutable, an un-understandable
shadow, and the rims assumed a purple hue.

It was her fancy of course. But Luke's eyes were naturally bright, of
varying tones of gray, blue, or green, with never a shadow beneath
the