were several other lodgers in the top part of the
house, but they heard no noise whatever. Fortunately, however, there
is a clew. Mrs. Ricketts, who was out making purchases for breakfast,
returned about a quarter to nine. As she entered the doorway a man
slipped by her and hastened in the direction of Regent street. She had
a good look at him, and declares that she would be able to recognize him
again. The police are searching for the suspected person."

Jack's breakfast was untasted and forgotten. His trembling hand had
upset the coffee, spilling it over the paper. He felt cold in every
vein, and his thoughts were in a state of wild chaos. It was hard to
grasp the truth--difficult to realize the import of those staring
headlines of black type!

"Diane murdered! Diane dead!" he repeated, vacantly. "I can't believe
it!"

After the first shock, when his brain began to throw off the numbing
stupor, he comprehended the terrible fact. The crime gave him no
satisfaction; it never occurred to him that he was a free man now. On
the contrary, a dull remorse stirred within him. He remembered his wife
as she had been five years before, when she had loved him with as much
sincerity as her shallow nature would permit, and her charms and beauty
had bound him captive by golden chains. There were tears in his eyes as
he paced the floor unsteadily.

"Poor Diane!" he muttered. "She has paid a frightful penalty for the
sins of her wayward life--more than she deserved. She must have been
lying dead when I rapped on her door last night. Yes, and the fatal blow
had been struck but a short time before! The assassin was the
foreign-looking man who came down the stairs as I went up! There can be
no doubt of it! But who was he? And what was his motive? A discarded
lover, perhaps! What else could have prompted the deed?"

He suddenly paused, and reeled against the wall; he clenched his hands,
and a look of sharp horror distorted his face.

"By heavens, this is awful!" he gasped. "I never thought of it before!
The police are looking for me--I remember now that I met the landlady
when I left the house. I brushed against her and apologized, and she
stared straight at me! And the real murderer--the foreigner--appears to
have been seen by nobody except myself. What shall I do? It is on me
that suspicion has fallen!"

The realization of his danger unnerved and stupefied Jack for an
instant. Dread phantoms of arrest and imprisonment, of trial a