by the whip of nightmare, it had leapt forward once again, and the effort, unconscious as it was, had awakened her. She believed that what she stood on now was firm ground; she believed that what she held now was verily the end of the clue. It was but a revival of an old theory of hers, cast aside and half forgotten. The theory about Molly having told tales out of school. Why should not Samuel Foote be one of the Destroying Angel's victims of old; why should it not have been from the Angel herself that he had gained his knowledge, which, for some reason, yet to be penetrated, he chose to keep to himself? Flashing down upon her in the dead of night the suggestion, if it did not bear conviction with it, did at least serve to consolidate her first general suspicions of Samuel Foote, to guide them into a distinct channel-to give then just so much colour and just so much form as would make them worth further investigation. So confident, indeed, did she feel of having hit on the mot de l'énigme, that her first instinct, seeing that, at any rate, she could not sleep, was to light a candle and write off straight to Gullyscoombe, advocating an immediate and searching cross-examination of the shoemaker. She had even got so far as lighting the candle, but before she had got further another thought intervened. and she blew the candle out and lay down again. It had occurred to her that she had once been told by a successful player that he made it his in variable rule never to play a trump-card without looking at it twice. If there was anything at all in her somewhat frantic surmise, she undoubtedly held trump-card in her hand, and she would look at it twice before she played it. To put the Bevans

a

on the track of the quarry which they had been too thick-skulled or too obstinate to scent for themselves, might be handing them back their lost fortune. They would be rich again. Germaine would be rich again. How, exactly, did she stand with Germaine ?

The question brought a little tremor with it, a little uneasiness for the future: but the trump-card she held in her hand, if it was a trump-card, could not fail to influence that future very seriously. So much might depend upon the exact moment at which it was played, and then there were so many different ways of playing it. To write to Lady Baby, and put the end of the clue into her hands, would be one way, and not a very satisfactory way either, seeing that that clue might, after all, prove to have been a mere bubble of her fancy, in which case she would cut a very well-meaning but somewhat ridiculous figure. Then there was the way of keeping the clue in her own hands and working it out with her own brains, until it proved itself either a failure or a success: if a failure, nothing more need be said about it; if a success, everything would end like a fairy tale-for what question about small scruples of veracity could there exist between any one Bevan and the good fairy from whose hands the Bevans received back their restored fortune? The plan was tempting enough; but the means? The only chance of success pointed its finger straight at Samuel Foote himself. A course of cross-examination by letter was weighed in the balance and found wanting. The same course, verbally carried out, was the suggestion that inevitably grew out of the first, and out of it in turn was evolved the equally inevitable logical conclusion that Maud's choice lay be

tween visiting Gullyscoombe in person or throwing her plan to the winds.

As she lay there in the dark her pulses were throbbing tumultuously. The difficulties of the case had greatly stimulated her nerves, and the mystery about it had awakened the detective in her. She had spoken truly, though she had spoken in jest, when she had confessed to Lord Kippendale her talents in that line. "And I said all along that a detective was what they wanted, quite as much as an engineer," said Maud, staring still into the darkness. The resolve to play that detective's part, to play it in the teeth of all difficulties, already stood firm within her. In after days she used to wonder greatly at the violence with which she had embraced her rôle. At the moment she was not disposed to analyse the elements of this enthusiastic violence, or she might

have discovered among them a certain fanatical desire to be convinced by her own creed, a certain eager grasping at a treasure which she believed to be legitimately her own,

to which, at any rate, she had more right than to that other treasure which a little time back she had been contemplating with an uneasy conscience, and-must it be confessed?-itching fingers.

Yes, the detective should be played; but how? To offer a visit to Gullyscoombe was out of the question, for many reasons; to reach that neighbourhood was imperative. Wild plans flitted through her brain, presentable perhaps when looked at in the dead of night; but Maud felt a vague, and by degrees a more and more drowsy conviction, that not one of them would stand the test of daylight; and it was with that "how?" stili upon her lips that she at last fell asleep in good earnest.

Her ladyship was dining out, and so was her ladyship's protégée. Considering how stark-dead the season was, the dinner - table presented a wonderfully respectable appearance, and after dinner more guests arrived, bringing with them rolls of music and instrument-cases of such divers shapes and sizes that the unmusical people began to feel doubtful about their dinner digestion; but they put a smile upon it, for this was a musical house. Maud, listening languidly to a harpsolo played by a young lady who had acquired a much-admired execution at the expense of her spine and her complexion, all at once heard some one behind her ask in a whisper,

"Who is that bored-looking individual in the doorway? Doesn't he look as if he had had just this harp-solo played to him all his life, and were gorged with it?"

"Or with anything else in the world as well," said another voice in answer; "it isn't harp-solos in particular that he is gorged with; it is life in general."

Maud turned her head in the direction indicated, and saw Mr Carbury standing in the doorway, with folded arms and a look of patient misery on his face. She had expected to see him when she turned; the remarks overheard fitted him as well as his own coat fitted him.

The sallow lady with the injured spine and the beautiful execution had just struck her last chord, and, amidst deafening applause, was being led away to lie down flat on a sofa. Under cover of the general commotion, Maud left her place and moved towards the door where Mr

Carbury stood. At the same instant he moved away from it in an opposite direction. It might have been mere accident, he might not have seen her, and yet Maud had fancied that their glances had just crossed.

Exactly the same thing. happened a little later in the evening, and this time there was obviously no accident about it. "What ever is the matter with the man?" thought Maud, rather amused, a good deal puzzled, and perhaps a trifle mortified. Up to that moment she had not cared particularly whether or not she had a talk with Mr Carbury, whom she had not seen since the Kippendale days. She now determined that she would have the talk. And of course she had it. Mr Carbury might just as well have given in to his fate with a good grace at once, instead of manoeuvring about the rooms in avoidance of Miss Epperton, only to be out-manœuvred by Miss Epperton, and presently to find himself launched full sail on a tête-à-tête with her in one of the most retired corners of the room. "To begin at the beginning," said Maud, "what makes you run away from me?"

Of course Mr Carbury disclaimed all idea of running away, but he did so with a certain ruffled dignity which, instead of allaying Maud's curiosity, only increased it. She was accustomed to see him on the defensive, armed to the teeth, as it were, against any atom of ridicule which might by any possibility be anywhere at

It

large within striking distance of his person; but this stand-off attitude of to-night was something quite distinct and by itself. was with an individual and not a general mistrust that he was watching her, as though doubtful of her intentions.

"It cannot be that you are afraid of me," said Maud, disregarding his stiff disclaimer, "for you know that I know you too well to expect you to exert yourself beyond bringing me an ice perhaps, tout au plus. It cannot be that you are bored with me, because you haven't seen me for three months, though, for the matter of that, I don't believe that has anything to do with it. I believe you were blasé as a baby; I believe you were bored to death by your first rattle.”

"Very possibly I was," said Carbury, eyeing her a shade more suspiciously, "more especially if it attled much."

"It

Maud shook her head. was a great mistake, Mr Carbury, and it was the first of a very long series of mistakes which you have been making ever since. Shall I tell you why life bores you so? It is because you look at it through one pair of eyes and listen to it with one pair of ears. It is because everything to you tastes of yourself. Now the really artistic ogotism is to help yourself to other people's eyes and ears. Look at me, for instance. Have you ever seen me bored by any mortal thing! But you, who will persist in look.. ing at everything from one single point of view, how can you wonder that you should be for ever getting the same lights and the same shades, that everything should look the same shape, the same colour, the same everything?"

"The violin trio is just beginning," said Mr Carbury with un

disguised irritation: "had we not better get nearer?" and he half rose from his chair.

"No, thanks," said Maud, settling herself more comfortably. "I have had enough music for tonight, and we have only just begun to talk. Don't you know that we ought to be mingling our condolences? Have you forgotten under which roof we last met? Have you no neat speech to make about the ruin of our friends?"

Maud spoke gaily, with her eyes on Carbury's face. She saw him give a very slight start, the sort of shiver that men give when an open wound is touched. Then he pulled himself together.

"They were scarcely my friends," he said, harshly. "I never saw them before the day that that crank-axle broke. I can't call them more than acquaintances."

"But even the ruin of one's acquaintances may distress one a little, I suppose?"

"Every one has to take their share of bad luck," said Carbury, almost violently. "And I don't suppose it's worse for them than for any one else." Then he turned impatiently, as though aware of Maud's laughing eyes upon him. "It doesn't seem to distress you much, at any rate, Miss Epperton. I never saw you in better spirits." "That is because I reflect that every ruin is not irretrievable," and Maud laughed. There was no denying that she was in exceptionally good spirits that night. Her laugh came readily, the exultant sparkle of her eye seemed to denote that she was hugging to her heart some secret cause for satisfaction. "I was in the thick of it, you know," she continued lightly. "If you had not evacuated Kippendale with that tragic suddenness, just twelve hours too soon, you would have been in the thick of it too."

"I am not aware that there was

not

anything either tragic or sudden about my departure from Kippendale," said Mr Carbury, sitting very bolt - upright in his chair. "It was business that called me away," he haughtily continued; "at least, as far as I can recall the circumstances. I am sure that I exactly remember what it was that caused me to leave Scotland that day: at any rate, it was nothing vital," finished Carbury, in a carefully steadied voice; and he eyed Maud with a distinct challenge, a sort of "laugh if you dare" expression of countenance, which so nearly upset her gravity that she felt for a moment compelled to hide her face behind her fan. A light had broken in upon her. By dint of apologising for his departure he had succeeded in reminding Maud that an apology was necessary, by dint of giving explanations he had called her attention to the fact that such an explanation had hitherto been wanting. Her own wit, aided by a backward glance, did the rest. She had some difficulty in not choking behind her fan. So this was masculine ingenuity? She had heard of the thing before, but she had never seen it in quite so curious a shape. So that was why he had fled so perseveringly tonight, and had lowered so sulkily when brought to bay? Maud had never heard a full account of that scene in the conservatory, but from words and hints dropped, and conclusions drawn, she had got pretty near the truth; and she perfectly understood why, as being in a sort of way one of the witnesses of his discomfiture, she should be so distasteful to Mr Carbury. "And to think that, but for his running away, I never should have dreamt of pursuing him; and but for his sticking up a screen, it never would have occurred to me to try and find out

what there was at the other side!" Thus reflected Maud, biting her lips in silence. "If he knew how deeply he has let me into his secrets I believe his reason would totter. I declare until to-night I looked on the thing as a fancy, but after to-night I am not sure, I am not at all sure, whether it doesn't belong to the category of passions. I should like to find out; the man amuses me."

When Maud's face emerged again from over her fan, it was perfectly composed. The silence, however full it may have been, had been short-just long enough, in fact, to make an apparent change of subject seem quite natural.

"Have you any messages for our friends?" she serenely inquired. "It is not unlikely that I may have an opportunity of meeting them soon.

This was the experiment by means of which Maud had very rapidly decided to "find out." "You are going there? Gullyscoombe ? them?"

To

To stay with

Mr Carbury's brown face had grown quite white; he spoke with a catch in his breath, and clutched at the arm of Maud's chair. Maud noticed nothing, apparently. She was not looking at him, but at a Japanese cabinet against the wall, and yet she could have told Mr Carbury's complexion to a shade and the look in his eyes to a sparkle.

"No, I am not going to stay with them; but I am going to spend a few weeks on that coast. Little Hal Wyndhurst, Lady Euphrosyne's youngest boy, is in bad health; he has been ordered to some quiet seaside place. Lady Euphrosyne's engagements being numerous and pressing, she has consented to intrust him to my cart. Floundershayle, it now appears, is only some three miles dis

tant from Gullyscoombe House. That is why I asked you whether you had any messages.'

This gave Mr Carbury the chance of picking up the fragments of his scattered self-possession, which he was not slow to do-Miss Epperton all the time studying the Japanese cabinet.

"Oh, that's it; I see," he said, leaning back in his chair with elaborate carelessness. The rigid and defiant attitude was dropped now as superfluous, since it was evident that, after all, Miss Epperton was not so quick at suspecting things as he had imagined. "Well -no," he drawled, languidly. "As for messages, I really don't know. By the by, is it a fact that the marriage is put off?"

"Put off? It is broken off." Mr Carbury waited for a minute before speaking again; there was something in his throat that might have interfered with his drawl if he had spoken at once. A wild curiosity was tearing at his heartstrings, a dozen questions were burning on his tongue. He had never quite understood the sequel of that affair; he had never quite comprehended why an announcement which he had been looking for with dread-the news of a broken engagement renewed-had not yet become an accomplished fact. He had waited for it as one waits for a thunderbolt, and felt harassed by its non-appearance as a man might feel provoked with the thunderbolt for keeping him so long on thorrs.

"How did the marriage come to be broken off?" he asked abruptly. "They quarrelled."

But

"Yes, I know about that. after that came the catastrophe,— how is it that that did not bring Wyndhurst back?"

Maud shrugged her shoulders. "The North Sea is a long way off, at least some parts of it are."