iving
man; so that Rachel could already marvel that she had not at once
detected this dignity and this distinction, only too foreign to her
husband as she had learnt to know him best, but unattainable in the
noblest save by death. And her eyes had risen to the slice of sky in the
upper half of the window, and at last the tears were rising in her eyes,
when they filled instead with sudden horror and enlightenment.

There was a jagged hole in the pane above the hasp; an upset of ink on
the desk beneath the window; and the ink was drying with the dead man's
blood, in which she now perceived him to be soaked, while the newspaper
on the floor beside him was crisp as toast from that which it had hidden
when she saw him last.

"Murdered!" whispered Rachel, breaking her long silence with a gasp.
"The work of thieves!"

The policemen exchanged a rapid glance.

"Looks like it," said the one who had opened the door, "I admit."

There was a superfluous dryness in his tone; but Rachel no more noticed
this than the further craning of heads in the doorway.

"But can you doubt it?" she cried, pointing from the broken window to
the spilled ink. "Did you think that he had shot himself?"

And her horror heightened at a thought more terrible to her than all the
rest. But the constable shook his head.

"We should have found the pistol--which we can't," said he. "But shot he
is, and through the heart."

"Then who could it be but thieves?"

"That's what we all want to know," said the officer; and still Rachel
had no time to think about his tone; for now she was bending over the
body, her white hands clenched, and agony enough in her white face.

"Look! look!" she cried, beckoning to them all. "He was wearing his
watch last night; that I can swear; and it has gone!"

"You are sure he was wearing it?" asked the same constable, approaching.

"Absolutely certain."

"Well, if that's so," said he, "and it can't be found, it will be a
point in your favor."

Rachel sprang upright, her wet eyes wide with pure astonishment.

"In my favor?" she cried. "Will you have the goodness to explain
yourself?"

The constables were standing on either side of her now.

"Well," replied the spokesman of the pair, "I don't like the way that
window's broken, for one thing, and if you look at it you'll see what I
mean. The broken glass is all outside on the sill. But that's not all,
ma'am; and, as you have a cab, we might do worse than drive to the