Punctually at the appointed time Gervase Henshaw was shown into Gifford's room. Kelson had received from his friend a hint of what was afoot and had naturally offered his services to back Gifford up, but they were refused.

"It is very kind of you, Harry," Gifford had said, "and just what one would have expected from you. But, as you shall hear later, this is not a business in which you or any one could usefully intervene. In fact it would be dangerous for me, considering the man I am dealing with, to say what I have to say before a third person."

So Kelson went off to spend the afternoon at the Tredworths'.

When Henshaw came in his expression bore no indication of the terms on which he and Gifford had lately parted. The keen face was unruffled and almost genial; but Gifford was not the man to be deceived by that outward seeming. Henshaw bowed and took the chair the other indicated. There was a short pause as though each waited for the other to begin. In the end it was Gifford who spoke first.

"I should like to come to an understanding with you, Mr. Henshaw, with regard to a very serious annoyance, not to say persecution, to which Miss Morriston has been subjected at your hands." Henshaw drew back his thin lips in a smile. "I have to tell you," Gifford continued, "once and for all that it must cease."

"Miss Morriston authorizes you to tell me that?" The question was put with something like a sneer.

"I should hope it requires no authority," Gifford retorted. "Having cognizance of what has been going on, it is my plain duty—"

"Why yours?" Henshaw interrupted coolly.

"For a very good reason," Gifford replied; "one which I may have to tell you presently."

He saw Henshaw flush and dart a glance of hate at him. It was plain he had misinterpreted the reply. But the exhibition was only momentary.

"Admitting in the meantime your right to interfere," Henshaw said, now with perfect coolness, "allow me to tell you that you are taking a very foolish course."

"I shall be glad to know how."

"The reason is, that if you have any regard, as you suggest, for Miss
Morriston, you are going the right way to do her a terrible injury."

Gifford rose and stood by the fire-place. "To come to the point at once without further preliminary fencing," he said quietly, "you mean, I take it, that I am forcing you to denounce her as being guilty of your brother's death."

For an instant Henshaw seemed taken aback by the other's directness. "There can be no doubt, holding the evidence I do, that she was guilty of it," he retorted uncompromisingly.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Henshaw," Gifford objected with decision, "there can be, and is, a very great deal more than a doubt of it."

Henshaw shot a searching glance at the man who spoke so confidently, as though trying to probe what, if anything, was behind his words.

"Perhaps you know then," he returned with his sneering smile, "how otherwise, if the lady had no hand in it, my brother came by his death?"

"I do," was the quiet answer.

"Then," still the smile of sneering incredulity, "it is clearly your duty to make it known."

"Clearly," Gifford assented in a calm tone. "That is why I asked you to come here this afternoon."

Henshaw was looking at him with a sort of malicious curiosity. In spite of his smartness he seemed at a loss to divine what the other was driving at, unless it were a well-studied line of bluff. But that Gifford could have, apart from what Edith Morriston might have told him, any intimate knowledge of the tragedy was inconceivable.

"I shall be glad to hear what you have to say, Mr. Gifford," he responded, in perhaps much greater curiosity than he chose to show.

"Then I have to inform you positively," Gifford answered, "that your brother's fatal wound was the result of a pure accident."

Coming from Edith Morriston's champion, there was nothing surprising in that assertion. Certainly if that were the other's strong suit he could easily beat it. It was therefore in a tone of confidence and relief that he demanded, "You can prove it?"

"I can."

"By Miss Morriston's testimony?"

"Not at all. By my own."

"Your own?" Henshaw's question was put with a curling lip.

"My own," Gifford repeated steadfastly.

"May one ask what you mean by that?"

Henshaw's contemptuous incredulity was by no means diminished even by the other's confident attitude.

Gifford gave a short laugh. "Naturally you do not take my meaning.
Obviously you think I am not a competent witness, that I know nothing
except by hearsay. You are, extraordinary as it may seem, quite wrong.
My testimony would be of nothing but what I myself saw and heard."

"What do you mean?" Henshaw had for a moment seemed to be calculating the probability of this monstrous suggestion being a fact, and had dismissed it with the contempt which showed itself in his question.

"I mean," Gifford replied with quiet assurance, "that I happened to be a witness of the interview in the tower-room between your brother and Miss Morriston, that I was there when he received his death-wound, and that it was I whom the girl Haynes saw descending by a rope from the top window."

Henshaw had started to his feet, his face working with an almost passionate astonishment. "You—you tell me all that," he cried, "and expect me to believe it?"

"I have told you and shall tell you nothing," was the cool reply, "that I am not prepared to state on oath in the witness-box."

For a while Henshaw seemed without the power to reply, dumbfounded, as his active brain tried to realize the probabilities of the declaration. "It seems to me," he said at length in a voice of which he was scarcely master, "that, whether your statement is true or otherwise, you are placing yourself in an uncommonly dangerous position, Mr. Gifford."

"I am aware that I am inviting a certain amount of ugly suspicion," Gifford agreed, "but the truth, which might have remained a mystery, has been forced from me by the necessity of protecting Miss Morriston. Perhaps you had better hear a frank account of the whole story, and the explanation of what I admit you are so far justified in setting down as concocted and wildly improbable."

"I should very much like to hear it," Henshaw returned in a tone which held out no promise of credence.

Thereupon Gifford gave him a terse account of the events and the chance which had led him into the tower and to be a secret witness of what happened there. Remembering that he was addressing the dead man's brother, he recounted the details of the interview without feeling; indeed he threw no more colour into it than if he had been opening a case in court. He simply stated the facts without comment. Henshaw listened to the singular story in an attitude of doggedly unemotional attention. Lawyer-like he restrained all tendency to interrupt the narrative and asked no question as it proceeded. Nevertheless it was clear he was thinking keenly, eager to note any weak points which he could turn to use.

When the recital had come to an end he said coolly—

"Your story is a very extraordinary one, Mr. Gifford; I won't call it, as it seems at first sight, wildly improbable, but it is at any rate an almost incredible coincidence. With your knowledge of the law I need scarcely remind you that the facts as you have just recounted them place you in a rather unenviable position."

"As I have already said," Gifford replied, "my story is calculated to suggest suspicion against me. But I am prepared to risk that consequence."

"In court," Henshaw observed, with a malicious smile, "handled by a counsel who knew his business, your statement could be given a very ugly turn indeed."

"As I have just told you," Gifford returned quietly, "I would take that risk rather than allow Miss Morriston to remain longer under suspicion. As for myself I should have every confidence in the result."

"It is well to be sanguine," Henshaw sneered. "If you have not already done so, are you prepared to repeat your story to the police?"

"Most certainly I am, if necessary," was the prompt answer. "But I do not fancy you will wish me to do so."

Henshaw's look was one of surprise, real or affected. "Indeed? Why so?"

"I will tell you," Gifford replied with a touch of sternness. "Because it would be absolutely against your interest. For one thing it would, short of absolute proof, leave still the shadow of doubt over your brother's death, it would effectually put a stop to your designs on Miss Morriston, which in any case must come to an end, and it would show up your dead brother's character and conduct in a very disreputable light. Now what I have to say to you is this. I know that, following in your brother's footsteps, you have been subjecting Miss Morriston to an amount of very hateful persecution. There may have been a certain excuse for it, at any rate a degree of temptation, but your designs have not been welcome to the lady, and they must forthwith come to an end. Now unless you undertake to cease your attentions to Miss Morriston, in short to put an end at once and for all to this persecution, I shall effectually remove the hold you imagine you have over her by going straight to the police, giving them the real story of what happened in the tower that night and as a natural consequence shall give evidence to that effect at the adjourned inquest. You will know best whether it would be worth your while to force me to do this. I simply state the position."

He waited for Henshaw's answer. The man was plainly cornered and seemed to be divided between a desire to let Gifford go on and place himself in a dangerous situation, and the more expedient course of raising a scandal which would touch him as well as disgrace his dead brother.

"This is a clever piece of bluff, Mr. Gifford," he said at length; "but—"

"It is no bluff at all," Gifford interrupted firmly. "I am merely determined to take the obvious course to save Miss Morriston from something a good deal worse than annoyance. I have no wish to discredit the dead, but I must remind you that the persecution of Miss Morriston by your brother had gone on for a very considerable time, and had latterly developed into an atrocious system of bullying. It is not an occasion for mincing one's expressions, and I must say that in my opinion your own conduct has been very little, if any, better; and that will be the judgment of every decent man if the truth comes out, as come out it shall, unless you agree to my terms before you leave this room."

For a while Henshaw made no reply. He sat thinking strenuously, evidently weighing his chances, estimating the strength of his adversary's position. Now and again he shot a glance, half probing, half sullen, at Gifford, who leaned back against the mantelpiece coolly awaiting his answer. At length he spoke.

"This is a very fine piece of bravado, Mr. Gifford. But I am not such a fool as it pleases you to think me. It is very good of you to explain to me my position in this affair; I am, however, quite capable of seeing that for myself. And you can hardly expect me to look upon your gratuitous advice as disinterested."

The man was talking to gain time; Gifford shrewdly guessed that. "I might be pardoned for supposing you do not altogether realize how you stand," he replied quietly. "But, after all, that is, as you suggest, your affair."

Henshaw forced a smile. "The point of view is everything," he said in a preoccupied tone; "and ours, yours and mine, are diametrically opposed."

"The point of view which perhaps ought most to be considered," Gifford retorted with rising impatience, "is that of the honourable profession to which we both belong. If you are prepared to face the odium, professional and social, of an exposure—"

Henshaw interrupted him with a wave of the hand. "You may apply that to yourself and to your friend, Miss Morriston," he said sharply. "I can take care of myself, thank you."

Gifford shrugged. "Very well, then. There is no more to be said." He crossed the room and took up his hat. "I will go and see Major Freeman at once." At the door he turned, to see with surprise and a certain satisfaction that Henshaw, although he had risen from his chair, seemed in no hurry to move. "You are coming with me," he suggested. "It would be quite in order, I think, for you to be present at my statement—unless you prefer not."

It seemed clear that the rather foxy Gervase Henshaw had really more than suspected a studied game of bluff. But now Gifford's attitude tended to put that out of the question.

"In the circumstances, as your statement will consist mainly of a slander against me and my dead brother," Henshaw replied sullenly, "I prefer to keep out of the business for the present. I fancy," he added with an ugly significance, "that the police will be quite equal to dealing with the situation without any assistance or intervention from me."

Gifford ignored the covert threat. "Very well, then," he said, throwing open the door and standing aside for Henshaw to pass out; "I will go alone. Yes; it will be better."

But Henshaw did not move.

"I don't quite gather," he said in answer to Gifford's glance of inquiry, "exactly what your object is in taking this step."

"I should have thought—" Gifford began.

"Is it," Henshaw proceeded, falling back now to his ordinary lawyer-like tone—"is it merely to checkmate what you are pleased to call my designs upon Miss Morriston?"

"That will be a mere incidental result," Gifford answered, shutting the door and coming back into the room. "My object is to put it, at once and for all, out of your power to hold over Miss Morriston the threat that she is at any moment liable to be accused—by you of all people—of your brother's murder, and so suggest that she is in your power."

"Why do you say by me, of all people?"

"You who profess an affection for her."

"Your word profess scarcely does me justice, Mr. Gifford," Henshaw returned, drawing back his shut lips. "I had, and have, a very sincere affection for Edith Morriston, which, it seems, I am not to be allowed to declare or even have credit for. As a man of the world you can hardly pretend to be ignorant of what a man will do when his happiness is at stake. What he does under such a stress is no guide to his real feelings. But we need not labour that point. My affection, genuine or not, seems to be in no fair way to be requited, and I had already made up my mind to leave it at that. I have merely kept up the game to this point out of curiosity to see how far your—shall we say knight-errantry?—would lead you. I will now relieve you from the necessity of going through an act of Quixotic folly which would assuredly, sooner or later, have unpleasant consequences for you."

So Gifford realized with a thrill of pleasure that he had won. He felt that in much of his speech the man was lying; that no consideration of mere unrequited affection had induced him to abandon his design.

"I am glad to hear you have come to a sensible conclusion," he said as coolly as the sense of triumph would let him. "Whatever happened you could hardly have expected your—plans to succeed."

"I don't know that," Henshaw retorted, with a touch of a beaten man's malice. "Anyhow I have my own ideas on the subject. But looking into the future with my brother's blood between us I think it might have turned out a hideous mistake."

"A safe conjecture," Gifford commented, between indignation and amusement at the cool way the man was now trying to save his face.

"Anyhow there's an end of it," Henshaw said with an air and gesture of half scornfully dismissing the affair. "And so I bid you good afternoon."

As he walked towards the door Gifford intercepted him.

"Not quite so fast, Mr. Henshaw," he said resolutely. "We can't leave the affair like this."

"What do you mean?" Henshaw ejaculated, with a look which was half defiant, half apprehensive.

"You have heard my story," Gifford pursued with steady decisiveness, "and have, I presume, accepted it."

"For what it is worth." The smart of defeat prompted the futile reply.

"That won't do at all," Gifford returned with sternness. "You either accept the account I have just given you, or you do not."

There was something like murder in Henshaw's eyes as he replied, "This bullying attitude is what I might expect from you. To put an end, however, to this most unpleasant interview you may take it that I accept your statement."

"To the absolute exoneration of Miss Morriston?"

"Naturally."

"I must have your assurance in writing."

Henshaw fell back a step and for a moment showed signs of an uncompromising refusal. "You are going a little too far, Mr. Gifford," he said doggedly.

"Not at all," Gifford retorted. "It is imperatively necessary."

"Is it?" Henshaw sneered. "For what purpose?"

"For Miss Morriston's protection."

The sneer deepened. "I should have thought that purpose quite negligible, seeing how valiantly the lady is already protected. But I have no objection," he added in an offhand tone, "as you seem to distrust the lasting power of bluff, to give you an extra safeguard. Indeed I think it just as well, all things considered, that Miss Morriston should have it. Give me a pen and a sheet of paper." Henshaw's manner was now the quintessence of insolence, but Gifford could afford, although it cost him an effort, to ignore it. With the practised pen of a lawyer Henshaw quickly wrote down a short declaration, signing it with a flourish and then flicking it across the table to Gifford. "That should meet the case," he said, leaning back confidently and thrusting his hands into his pockets. Dealing with one who, like himself, was learned in the law he had, to save trouble, written a terse declaration which he knew should be quite acceptable. It simply stated that from certain facts which had come to his knowledge he was quite satisfied that his brother's death had been caused by an accident, and that no one was to blame for it, and he thereby undertook to make no future charge or imputation against any one, in connexion therewith.

"Yes, that will do," Gifford answered curtly when he had read the few lines.

Henshaw rose with a rather mocking smile. "I congratulate you on your—luck, Mr. Gifford," he said with a studied emphasis, and so left the room.