Louise Aubin stood behind her young mistress's dressing chair, brushing the glorious tresses which her deft fingers would presently coil and coax into the latest fashionable mode. There was to be a small dinner party at the Manor House that evening. Mr. Vernon Mallory and his daughter were coming, also Leslie Chermside and Travers Nugent, as well as a few local people in whom we are not interested. It was the day following that on which Aunt Sarah had raised hopes for her protÉgÉes, which, so far as one of them was concerned, were so rudely dashed in the card-room at the club.

The maid glanced furtively at the beautiful face in the mirror opposite, and took note of the dreamy happiness in Violet Maynard's eyes. Violet had been consistently kind to her, and Louise, selfish though she was to the core, was not wholly ungrateful. She had deceived herself into the belief that she was about to do her mistress a genuine service, but it was characteristic of her that she rather enjoyed the prospect of inflicting pain in the process.

"I should so like to consult you, mees, about an affair of my own," she began hesitatingly. There was no need for the hesitation, mademoiselle having been carefully coached for the part she was to play no later than that afternoon, when she had paid another surreptitious visit to The Hut. But a shy modesty was a weapon in her equipment for the fray.

Violet looked up quickly. The note of diffidence was unusual. "Of course, Louise, you can ask me anything," she said, wondering why the Abigail's gaze was so swiftly averted. "I should have thought, though, that you are much more capable of managing your affairs than I am."

The Frenchwoman contrived to show deprecation in the twirl she gave to the silver hair-brush. "In small things, mees, perhaps," she answered. "But this is not small, the thing in which I beg you to advise. It is an affair of the 'eart, and an affair of murderre—the murderre of the gentleman who was killed on the marsh."

Violet with difficulty repressed a smile. The subject was a gruesome one, but, serene in her own love idyll, she had really paid very little attention to it. "You don't mean to tell me, Louise, that you killed that unfortunate man because he did not appreciate your charms?"

Mademoiselle was on her dignity at once; moreover, having marked down higher game, she could afford to be quite genuine in her repudiation of any partiality for Mr. Levi Levison.

"Mees will pardon her devoted maid for saying that it is hardly a subject for jest," came her prompt rebuke. "The shoe was what you call on the other foot. Mr. Levison, he admire me greatly, but I not think ver' moosh of 'im. All the same, he tells me things, and among others he tell me who it was he going to meet on the marsh. I blame myself for not having approach the police about it, and I desire to ask you, mees, if it is now too late."

Violet grew suddenly grave. A responsibility was being thrust upon her which she would have avoided if she could, but she felt it her duty to accept. Louise was a stranger in a strange land, the laws of which she could not be expected to understand, and who was there to advise her if not her mistress? Violet had not much doubt as to what her advice would be, for she knew that it was a serious matter to withhold information that would tend to the conviction of a criminal. The maid would have to be told to take the course she ought to have taken at first—to give the police the name of the man Levison was to meet.

But Violet intuitively shrank from uttering the word which might be the first step towards condemning a fellow-creature to ignominious death, however well merited, and perhaps it was to gain time that she asked—

"How was it that you concealed this knowledge, Louise? Is the person whom you have been shielding a friend of yours?"

"On the contrary, mees, I 'ave neverre speak to 'im," came the glib reply. "I keep the secret because Mr. Travers Nugent, who I know to be honourable gentleman and well acquainted with m'sieu your father, because 'e guess I going to the police and persuade me to stop. 'E say it silly to stir up the mud for no good."

Now Violet Maynard had never yielded to the spell of Travers Nugent's social attractions. She had always been civil to him as one in whose well-informed society easy-going Montague Maynard found pleasure, but in her infrequent and superficial intercourse with the man-about-town she had been conscious of a vague mistrust. Quite naturally, therefore, she exclaimed—

"Mr. Nugent should not have interfered. It was very wrong of him, and though I do not know much about such matters I imagine that he may have made trouble for himself as well as for you. Who was this person whom Mr. Nugent was at such pains to protect, Louise? He is fond of currying favour with the natives of this place, I know, but I should hardly have thought that his thirst for popularity would have led him to incur the risk of personal unpleasantness."

Mademoiselle Louise stole one glance at the mildly indignant face in the glass, then dropped her eyes demurely before firing the shot with which she had been primed.

"It was not about what you call native of Ottermouth that he beg me to be silent, mees," she replied, using the hair-brush assiduously. "It was a visitor gentleman—very nice gentleman he seems and friendly with you, mees, and with m'sieu your father. But that I cannot 'elp. It was Mr. Chermside who arrange to meet Levison on the marsh at ten o'clock on the night when some one kill him."

Mademoiselle gave quite half a dozen strokes with the brush before she dared to look in the mirror again, and then she was impelled to do so by the quivering of the shapely shoulders. Was her mistress sobbing in silent anguish under the blow she had struck, or did the convulsion betoken restrained merriment? The glance into the glass settled it. The eyes of mistress and maid met, and Violet broke into a ripple of silvery laughter.

"Why, you foolish little goose!" she cried, "there is no harm done after all. You had better go to the police with your story as soon as you like, or as soon as Mr. Nugent permits. Mr. Chermside would no more dream of murdering anybody than would Mr. Nugent himself—not half so much, indeed. It was nice of Mr. Nugent to want to save his friend annoyance, but he might have had more faith in him. Once more, you are a goose, Louise."

The Frenchwoman bore the rebuke in silence. She had fulfilled the instructions so carefully instilled into her artful but shallow brain, and all her efforts just now being devoted to pleasing her new cher ami, as she considered the master of The Hut, she was content to leave it at that. Nugent had not confided to her how he expected or wished Miss Maynard to behave on hearing what he had instructed Louise to tell her.

As soon as her toilet was complete Violet descended to the drawing-room, where Aunt Sarah was talking to the Mallorys, who were the only guests who had as yet arrived. In spite of having parted with Reggie Beauchamp that morning Enid was in high spirits, and looked delightfully fresh in her dinner dress of virginal white. She was merrily receiving somewhat pessimistic congratulations on her engagement from Aunt Sarah, who was laying it down that to marry a man liable to be drowned at any moment was simply flying in the face of Providence.

Nugent and Chermside arrived together, and when Montague Maynard came bursting in in the wake of the few remaining guests dinner was announced, and they adjourned to the dining-room. To Violet the meal was a tedious function that night. She was brimming over with mixed excitement over the implied aspersion cast by Louise on her lover, and she was longing to share the absurdity, as she considered it, with him. She had much ado to restrain herself from mentioning it at the dinner-table, but she realized that it was hardly a matter to be made fun of before the servants. Moreover, she noticed that Leslie was looking pale and preoccupied, and by no means in a mood to appreciate the humour of a jest so grimly personal. She was afraid he was going to be ill. On all accounts it would be wiser to postpone telling him till they were alone.

As it happened, it was not to Leslie that she was destined to first moot the subject of Louise's treacherous confidence. When the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing-room after dinner the human pack chanced to get so shuffled that Violet found herself for the moment paired off with Travers Nugent, and unable to obtain speech with her lover. It was not for her to know that Nugent had carefully arranged his entry into the drawing-room with a view to securing a tÊte-À-tÊte with her. Eagerly awaiting Leslie's appearance, she had seated herself alone near the door, and Nugent, coming in ahead of the rest of the men, at once monopolized her.

"The Queen of the Manor is looking radiant," he said in his silky accents, assuming the air of deference which carried him far with most of his female acquaintances.

"I am not feeling very radiant, or even good-tempered—with you," replied Violet. Baulked of her wish to have it out with Leslie, she was seized with a desire to rend in pieces, figuratively, of course, this debonair gentleman who had busied himself to shield one who by no possible chain of circumstances could need any shielding.

"Is it permitted to inquire, fair lady, what has caused me to fall under the ban of your displeasure?" said Nugent smilingly. The smile was well managed, seeing that he was at the same time assuring himself that Leslie and Mr. Mallory, convoyed by their host, had passed on with the other men to where Aunt Sarah was holding a miniature court at the far end of the room. The smile deepened a little as he noticed that Mr. Mallory palpably overcame an impulse to join them.

"Yes," said Violet in answer to his question. "If you had not inquired I should have mentioned the matter myself. What is the meaning of this preposterous story brought to me by my maid—that you prevented her from going to the police about Mr. Chermside's appointment with that poor man?"

The start which Nugent gave, if not natural, at any rate looked the genuine thing. He bit his lips as though annoyed and disconcerted, and an anxious expression crept into his eyes.

"So that stupid French girl has been frightening you," he said softly. "My dear Miss Maynard, I would not have had this happen for worlds."

"That is not an answer to my question," Violet persisted hotly. "Why did you pursue a course which may very likely get the girl into trouble? If you did it to save Mr. Chermside from unpleasantness your motive was all right, though I should have thought that a man of the world would have known that your action was very likely to have the opposite effect. If the police had been informed at once of this appointment on the marsh they would have laughed at the idea of a gentleman in Mr. Chermside's position having anything to do with the crime. But now, when they are informed of it, they will probably attach an exaggerated importance to the incident, and worry for explanations."

Travers Nugent sighed the sigh of the man who had been misunderstood. "I am glad that you give me credit for having acted from loyalty to my friend, even if you accuse me of folly," he replied.

"Why did you commit that folly?" demanded Violet, tapping her dainty shoe in imperious insistence.

The answer came as though dragged out by force and in the face of better judgment. "You leave me no option," said Nugent slowly, waving his soft white hand in a deprecatory gesture. "I took the course I did—that of persuading Louise Aubin not to rush off to the police—because—well, because——" He stopped abruptly, and then added with a strained little laugh, "I find this a difficult thing to say, Miss Maynard."

"I am waiting for you to say it," came Violet's inexorable rejoinder.

"Well, then, has it not occurred to you that if Chermside had wanted his appointment with Levison to be known to the police he would himself have informed them of it, whereas, though he was called as a witness at the inquest, he preserved silence about it?"

Violet Maynard was a beautiful woman, and she had never looked more beautiful than when she rose, majestic in her wrath, to champion the man she loved.

"Mr. Nugent," she suppressed her voice with an effort, "that implies doubt—almost accusation. I am ashamed of you. How dare you think such an impossible thing—to say nothing of putting it into words, to me of all people, who am his affianced wife!"

Nugent bowed as before an offended goddess, and a little flush came into his face—an unusual phenomenon in one whose emotions were so well controlled. "I somehow seem not to be able to express myself clearly to-night," he murmured plaintively. "You must forgive me if I point out that the suggestion—the perfectly horrible suggestion—came from you, and not from me. I was not charging Chermside with murder. The bare idea is ridiculous. I like the boy, and he brought me the best introductions from India, though personally he has not been communicative about his private affairs. I know this much, however—that he had business with Levison, as he admitted at the inquest, which he does not want to be noised abroad and mouthed over by the wiseacres of Ottermouth. I surmise that he was to meet Levison on the marsh that night to discuss that business, and I therefore deemed it advisable in his interest to suppress all publicity about the intended meeting."

"You are inferring that the business, as you call it, was discreditable?" said Violet, mystified, and only half mollified.

"Not in the very least," rejoined Nugent glibly. "I do not know what the transaction was, but it is impossible to associate anything discreditable with Chermside. If I might make a suggestion it would be that you should yourself ask Chermside for enlightenment."

"Thank you, I shall certainly inform him of what has happened," said Violet coldly. "But it must rest with him whether he offers an explanation of his relations with Levison. I am content to trust the man who is to be my husband. In the meanwhile, Mr. Nugent, it is but fair that you should know that I have advised my maid to lose no further time in communicating with the police. It will be the shortest and most satisfactory way of getting this absurdity wiped out once for all."

Nugent bowed and stood looking after the graceful figure of the girl as she sailed away from him across the room. His long moustache hid the wicked curl at the corner of his mouth. "Ah, my lady," he murmured under his breath, "you will find that it is one thing to tender advice and quite another to get it acted on. The fair and flighty Louise is receiving her orders from your humble servant at present, and they will certainly not include an injunction to call at the police-station. But that bogey has been effectually set up, I think."

Leslie Chermside had been covertly watching from afar Violet's animated interview with Nugent, and seeing her coming towards him he hastened to meet her. That evening he grudged every moment not spent in her society, for on the morrow he would assuredly see her for the last time. Unless some miracle intervened there would be nothing for it, if he was to avoid arrest for murder and its consequent exposure, but to assent to Nugent's plan for flight on the Cobra. He had postponed giving his final decision, hoping against hope that something might turn up to save him, and also because at the back of his mind there still lurked the suspicion that Nugent's account of his danger might have been trumped up for some cunning purpose. But now he was to receive confirmation of the story of Louise Aubin's suspicions from a source there was no gainsaying.

"Take me into the orangery; I want to speak to you," said Violet, laying her hand on his sleeve.

The orangery at Ottermouth Manor was a huge glass structure in which oranges may have been grown in Georgian days after the prevailing fashion, but which in modern times sheltered a wealth of tropical shrubs. In the great aisles of luxuriant foliage it was possible to lose oneself, as Violet and Leslie, after passing through one of the long windows, proceeded to do now. They halted at last under the spreading fronds of a giant palm, from a branch of which depended one of the electric lamps which the millionaire had installed in the old mansion.

"Leslie," said the girl, looking up into her lover's face, "I have done a strange thing to-night, as proof of my trust in you. That French maid of mine tells me that you had a rendezvous with the man who was murdered the other day, and that it was at or near to the spot where the body was found. I have been blaming her for withholding her knowledge from the authorities, and have advised her to rectify the omission without delay. You mustn't be angry with me if I have been unduly interfering, but I knew that you could have nothing to fear really in the matter of Levison's death, and that it would be better to scotch this ridiculous suspicion before it grows unmanageable."

Chermside laughed, keeping the bitterness out of the sound of it as best he could. To call it the irony of fate was beside the mark. It was really almost supernatural, the way he was being tossed hither and thither by the consequences of the crime he had abjured. Here was the woman who was all in all to him calmly telling him that she had taken a step which would snatch the last straw from his drowning hands. All hope was gone. He must run for it now, if the traces of his disgraceful lapse were to be covered.

"It is quite true," he said. "I had an appointment to meet Levison. But," and he laughed again as he made the addition, "I really didn't murder him, Violet."

The taper fingers, glittering with gems, closed on his arm. "Now don't be silly," came the quick answer from sweetly protesting lips. "Every one seems to be trying to be silly over this horrible affair—Louise, Mr. Nugent, and now you yourself. I have just been calling Mr. Nugent over the coals for his preposterous counsel to that misguided French fool, and I told him what I now tell you—that my trust in your incapacity for such a deed is invincible. I burn with indignation that even a fool like Louise should have thought the contrary. That is why I chanced the risk of offending you, dear, by forcing the issue."

"You have indeed forced the issue, but there is nothing in all the wide world that you could do to offend me," said Leslie, and his half-strangled sob carried conviction.

But Violet Maynard wanted more than conviction on a point on which she was already convinced. She hungered for the confidence which she was too proud to demand as her right. Yet her lover showed no sign of according it. He just stood there staring at her, and looking half dazed in the electric glow, but he had evidently no intention of explaining why he was to have met Levison in the marsh, and why he had concealed the fact.

"Is that all you have to say to me?" asked Violet quietly.

And then, when her question evoked no reply, she turned and threaded her way back amid the tangle of exotic luxuriance to the drawing-room, leaving Leslie to follow like a man in a dream.