al explosion in which some of the
same people had been badly injured. In connection with these disasters
mention was likewise made of a certain Mr. Dalton, who had disappeared
shortly after, leaving rather a bad name behind him, altogether
undeserved, according to many of the papers, he always having been a
"financier of the highest standing." This last ball of gossip was rolled
Martha's way by her nephew, who was a clerk in a solicitor's office off
the Strand and who had mailed an editorial on the matter to his uncle,
who promptly forwarded it to Martha. She had read it carefully to the
end and had put it in her drawer without at first grasping the full
meaning of the fact that, but for the activities of this same Mr.
Dalton, her dear mistress and her dear mistress's husband, Felix O'Day,
and her dear mistress's father-in-law, the late Sir Carroll O'Day, would
still be in possession of their ancestral estates and in undisturbed
enjoyment of whatever happiness they, individually and collectively,
could get out of life.

What the dear woman never knew, and it was just as well that she
did not, were the special happenings which ended in the overwhelming
catastrophe.

It really began with a tea basket, holding enough for two, which was
opened one lovely afternoon under the big willows skirting that little
strip of land bordering the backwater at Cookham-on-Thames. My lady at
the time was wearing a wide leghorn hat with blue ribbons that matched
her eyes and set off the roses in her fair English cheeks. Her companion
was in white flannels--a muscular, well-set-up young man of thirty,
fifteen years younger than her husband and with twice his charm--one of
those delightful companions who possess the rare quality of making an
hour seem but five minutes. A gay party had dropped down the river in
her father's launch, which had been tied up at Ferry Inn, and Dalton
had insisted on taking my lady for just a half-hour's poling in a punt,
Felix and the others preferring to take their tea at the Inn--plans
readily agreed to and carried out, except that the half-hour prolonged
itself into two whole ones.

Then there had come a week-end at Glenmore Castle and a garden party
outside London, and then five-o'clock teas at half a dozen private
houses, including one or two meetings a trifle more secluded. And all
quite as it should be, for a most desirable and valuable guest was this
same Mr. Guy Dalton, a man received everywhere with op