t. Oh, Mark played his part there as Mr. Wrent, I guess;
there ain't no two questions about that," finished Lydia triumphantly.
"He is the assassin, you bet!"

"I don't believe it!" cried Diana furiously. "Why, my father is too weak
in the head to have the will, let alone the courage, to masquerade like
that. He is like a child in leading-strings."

"That's his cunning, Diana. He's 'cute enough to pretend madness, so
that he won't be hanged!"

"It is impossible that Vrain can be Wrent," said Lucian decidedly. "I
agree with Miss Vrain; he is too weak and irresponsible to carry out
such a deed. Besides, I don't see how you prove him guilty of the
murder; you do not even know that he could enter the Silent House by the
secret way."

"I don't know anything about it, except what Count Ferruci told me,"
said Lydia obstinately. "And he said that Vrain, as Wrent, killed Clear.
But you can easily prove if it's true or not."

"How can we prove it?" asked Diana coldly.

"By laying a trap for Mark. You know--at least Ercole told me, and I
suppose Mrs. Clear told you--that she corresponded with Mark--Wrent, I
mean--in the agony column of the _Daily Telegraph_.

"By means of a cypher? Yes, I know that, but she hasn't received any
answer yet."

"Of course not," replied Lydia, with triumph, "because Wrent--that's
Mark, you know--is in the asylum, and can't answer her."

"This is all nonsense!" broke in Lucian, impatient of this cobweb
spinning. "I don't believe a word of Ferruci's story. If Vrain lived in
Jersey Street as Wrent, why should Mrs. Clear visit him?"

"To get him back to Bayswater."

"Nonsense! nonsense! And even admitting as much, why should Mrs. Clear,
in the newspapers, correspond in cypher with a man whom she not only
knows is in an asylum as her husband, but who can be seen by her at any
time?"

"I quite agree with you, Lucian," cried Diana emphatically. "Count
Ferruci told a pack of falsehoods to Mrs. Vrain! The thing is utterly
absurd!"

"Oh, I guess I'm not so easily made a fool of as all that!" cried Lydia,
firing up. "If you don't believe me, lay the trap I told you of. Let
Mark go free out of the asylum; get Mrs. Clear, with her cypher and
newspapers, to ask him to meet her in the house where Clear was
murdered, and then you'll see if Mark won't turn up in his character of
Wrent."

"He will not!" cried Diana vehemently. "He will not!"

"Mark, when he left me," went on the angry Lydia, "had ple