Vera insisted on going back to the house of death, although her aunt and Susan Amphlett were equally urgent in trying to take her home with them.

"Why should you make a martyr of yourself?" Susie urged in her vehement way. "You can do him no good. He will not know. All the dead want is silence and darkness, and to be mourned by those they love. You will mourn for him just as sincerely in my dainty spare room in Green Street as in that wilderness of empty rooms where he lies."

"Yes, I shall mourn for him," said Vera in low, measured tones. "I shall mourn for him all my life."

"No, no, chÉrie," murmured Susan confidentially, as they moved towards the door. "You will always be sorry for his quite too dreadful death, and you will remember all his goodness and absolute devotion to you. But you have your own life before you. You are not like some poor old thing, who feels that life is done with when she is left a widow; nothing to look forward to but charity bazaars and pug dogs. Remember how young you are, child! Almost on the threshold of life. You don't know how I envy you when I think I am such ages older. You are going to be immensely rich; and by and by you will marry someone you can adore, as poor Provana adored you: and whatever you do, Vera, don't wait till you are fat and elderly, and then marry a boy, as I've known a widow do—out of respect for a first husband."

Susan felt that she had now hit upon the right note, and was really a consoler; but nothing she could say had any effect upon her friend.

"I am going home," she said. "The house is dreadful; but I would rather be there than anywhere else."

She had only the same answer for her aunt, when urged to stay at Berkeley Square, "at least until all this troublesome business of the inquest is over."

"I can't think why the coroner could not have finished to-day," Lady Okehampton said to her husband at dinner that evening. "They had the doctor's evidence, and the servants', and the clerk's; all the circumstances were made clear, every detail of the poor thing's death was gone into. What more could be wanted?"

"Only one detail. To find the murderer. If ever I were to be murdered I hope the inquiry would address itself more to the man who did it than to the way in which it was done; and that the coroner would stick to his work till he found the fellow who killed me. If he didn't, I believe I should walk at midnight, like Hamlet's father."

Claude Rutherford was among the friends who surrounded Vera as she left the court. His mother was with him, an unexpected figure in such a scene; and while her son said no word, Mrs. Rutherford murmured the gentle assurance of her sympathy. She had held herself aloof from Vera for a long time, disapproving of an intimacy in which she saw danger for her son, and discredit for Mario Provana's wife; but she came to this dismal court to-day moved by divine compassion for the fragile creature who had become the central figure in so awful a tragedy.

For the first time since she had entered the court, Vera's strained eyeballs clouded with tears, and the hand which Mrs. Rutherford held with a friendly pressure trembled violently. That unnatural calm of the last two hours had given way in the surprise of this meeting. Her carriage was waiting for her, and she stepped into it too quickly for Claude to help her; he could only stand among the others to see her driven away.

"It was more than good of you to come to this dreadful place," he told his mother, as they walked towards Piccadilly.

"I would do anything to help her, if it were possible. She has not made the best use of her life, so far. Perhaps she has only gone with the stream, like the herd of modern women, who seem to have neither heart nor conscience. But this tragedy was a terrible awakening, and no one can help being sorry for her."

"The ruck of her friends will not be sorry. They will only chatter about her husband's death, and discuss the amount of her fortune as his widow. You are right, mother. They have neither heart nor conscience. They care for nothing, hope for nothing, except to be better dressed and dine out oftener than other women."

He spoke with unusual bitterness, and his mother looked at him anxiously. All the marks of a too feverish life showed upon his delicate countenance in the clear light of summer. He had never counted among handsome men; but a face so sensitive was more interesting than the beauty of line and colour, and people who knew Claude Rutherford knew that the sensitive face was the outward evidence of a highly emotional nature.

"You are looking so tired and worn, Claude," his mother said anxiously.

"Oh, this ghastly business has been a shock for me as well as for her. I was with her at the Fulham House ball the night before. We were waltzing in a mob of dancers, sitting out among tropical flowers, laughing together in the noise and laughter and foolish talk in the supper-room. Such diamonds; such bare shoulders and enamelled faces. It was half-past two when I took her to her carriage, and a blackbird was whistling in the avenue. Everybody was pretending to be happy; and she went alone to that great, gloomy house, to be awakened a few hours later to be told that her husband had been murdered."

"What could have been the motive for such a murder?"

"Plunder. What else? Of course, it was known that he kept valuables in that safe."

"How was it that he came home so unexpectedly?"

"Heaven knows. Perhaps he wanted to give his wife a surprise—a grim joke in such a husband; and the result was grimmer than he could have anticipated." There was a savage bitterness in his tone that shocked the tender-hearted woman.

"Don't speak of it like that, Claude. It is too dreadful to think of. He was a devoted husband, from all that I have heard; only too blindly indulgent, letting his wife lead the wretched, empty-headed existence that can spoil even a good woman."

They were at Mrs. Rutherford's door by this time, and she asked her son to give her a few minutes more before he went away.

"As long as you like," he said. "I am at a loose end. My usual diversions are out of the question; and all manner of work is impossible."

"You must go away, Claude. You are too sensitive, too warm-hearted to get over this business easily. You ought to leave London for a long time."

And then, with her hand on his shoulder, looking up at him with tearful solicitude, she enlarged upon that source of consolation to which a woman of deep religious convictions turns instinctively in the time of trouble. She reminded him of his happy and innocent boyhood, the unquestioning faith of those early years, before the leaven of doubt had entered his mind, before the Christian youth had become the trifler and cynic.

He listened in silence, with downcast eyes, and then, tenderly kissing her, he said gently:

"Yes, perhaps there lies the cure. I must go back to those tranquil days. I must leave this hateful town. Yes, mother, I mean to go away—for a long time. I shall take your advice. If you see Father Hammond I should like you to tell him about this talk of ours."

"Why not go to him at once and make your confession? You would feel happier afterwards."

"I have not come to that yet. I mean to have a talk with him later. A riverdervi, Madre mia."

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know. To my rooms, most likely. I have letters to write."

He was gone before she could question him further. That business of letter-writing was the most arduous work he knew. Since he had "chucked" art, his days had no more strenuous employment; his life was the over-occupied existence of a man of pleasure.