That Thursday was wet. It drizzled all day long. I was not feeling well. I had had trouble with one of my maids--caught her tampering with a lock, and sent her packing on the spot. Altogether I was feeling run down.

The best of us women get the blues at times!

Things were worrying me, as things will if one is not feeling quite the thing. I was almost disposed to tell myself that I had made a mistake in coming to England. After all, I should have done better by remaining on the other side. Here there were so many things which were against me--in England there is no mercy for the woman that repenteth. And getting myself mixed up in this business was scarcely a promising beginning.

The arrival of my friend, the gentleman, acted as a pick-me-up. It did a poor, nerveless creature good to gaze on so vivid a representative of sunshine and of strength. I was leaning back upon a couch when he came in--somehow his knocking at the door had set all my pulses twittering. It was with an effort I looked up and met his eyes.

He looked so well in evening dress--it was the first time I had seen him in it. When one has lived for years with savages one notices such little things.

"It is good of you to come to cheer me. I am so much in want of being cheered."

He laughed, retaining my hand for a minute in his.

"The want is common to us both. I am in want of being cheered as much as you--we will cheer each other." He sat down on a little easy-chair, which he drew in front of me. "I have only just returned from Devonshire, which is like coming from the sunshine into the night."

"Have you been there alone?"

"I have been staying with a friend--Sir Haselton Jardine."

Sir Haselton Jardine? Where, quite recently, had I heard that name? Of course! It was the name of the famous counsel. I had seen it stated in that day's paper that he was to be retained by the Crown to prosecute Tommy.

I wondered if that item of news had come Mr. Townsend's way.

"Sir Haselton Jardine? Is that the lawyer?"

"Yes. I suppose he's the greatest barrister at the Bar just now."

"Didn't I see that he was going to have something to do with this murder there's all the stir about?"

I had to let it out--I could not help it. So far as any effect which the allusion had upon my visitor was concerned I need not have tried. He never turned a hair. I was watching the white hands, which were resting on his knee. Not a muscle quivered.

He replied to my question without a moment's hesitation, and in his ordinary tone of voice.

"He tells me that he's going to prosecute. He seems rather eager about the business, too. If the chap is guilty I don't fancy Jardine will let him slip."

I was still for a moment. I looked into my visitor's eyes with wonder, and--I don't mind owning it--with admiration. This was the sort of man it was worth one's while to know--he was a man.

"Don't you think the affair is rather an odd one?"

"Very odd, indeed--and not the least odd part of it is that I know this fellow Tennant very well."

"No!" I was startled.

"I do. He's a stockbroker. He's done a good deal of business for me. Unless I am mistaken, he is, or was, almost a neighbour of yours."

"I know. He lives five doors down the street. But fancy your knowing him. It seems so strange."

He made a little movement with his hands.

"In this world it is the strange things which happen."

"That is true."

As I sat there, looking at him, I realised how true it was with a vividness of which he probably had no notion. This man was a study for the gods. His attitude of perfect unconcern was not acting, it was nature.

I felt that, having gone so far, I must go farther.

"Do you think he's guilty?"

"It seems almost incredible. He always struck me as being one of the pleasantest and most inoffensive little chaps alive."

"Every one seems to think he's guilty."

He smiled.

"Every one's an ass."

"Suppose he were to be found guilty, and was hanged, and all the time he was innocent; how dreadful it would be."

Another little movement with his hands.

"It's the way of the world. The innocent are always being hung. Half the time we guilty ones go free."

This was a man. I went still further.

"Do you know that we met each other, for the first time, on the night which the murder happened?"

"Am I likely to forget it?"

"Thank you. It's very kind of you to say so. But do you know that we must have met each other quite close to what they call the scene of the tragedy."

"I believe that we were within half a mile of it."

"And it must just have happened."

"Probably within twenty minutes of our meeting. By all of which you will perceive that our acquaintance in the beginning was cemented with blood."

What did he mean? What kind of creature was he? I really began to wonder.

We went in to dinner, for which, by the way, he already had given me an appetite.

I had seen a good deal of men--of all sorts and conditions of men!--but I never saw a man who came within measurable distance of Mr. Reginald Townsend in the exercise of that very rare, and wholly indescribable gift, the gift of fascination. I should say that he would have been a favourite alike with men and women--I will stake my bottom dollar, as poor, dear Daniel would have said, that he would have been popular with every woman. To me the average "fascinating man" is a monstrosity. He so obviously bears his honours thick upon his brow. He so plainly tries his hardest to live up to them. There was nothing of that sort about Mr. Townsend. The charm was in him; it would come out of him whether he would or he would not. He was not conscious of it. There was no sign of effort. There was no effort. He was always natural, always completely at his ease. He could not help but give you pleasure. You yourself did not notice the glamour of his manner and his presence till, as it were, it had compassed you about.

Nor were his powers of fascination decreased by the fact that he was the best bred, the best dressed, the most graceful, and the handsomest man I ever saw.

This sounds like tall talking. But it is not. I am no tall talkist, especially where men are concerned. It is the simple truth. My friend, the gentleman, was a man in twenty millions; any woman would have been proud to own him.

I felt this very strongly, with a tendency to personal application, before the dinner was through. His conversation did me good. He talked as if he had been brought up in the same cradle with all the leading members of the British aristocracy. There was nobody who was anybody whom he did not seem to know, male and female. To listen to him talking was like reading the Almanach de Gotha and the Court Guide bound up together. Only it was better, and a deal more satisfying.

He began to speak of a particular friend of his, one Lord Archibald BeauprÉ, in a way which set me all of a tremble.

"I will bring Archie to call on you--if I may."

This Lord Archibald BeauprÉ was a son of the Duke of Glenlivet, and, so far as blood went, not very distant from the Throne itself.

"I shall be very glad to see him, or, indeed, any of your friends. Is this Sir Haselton Jardine, with whom you have been staying, a married man?"

"He is a widower."

"Has he any family?"

"He has a daughter."

I don't know what there was in his tone, but there was something when he said "He has a daughter" which made it almost seem as if he had slapped my face. I felt almost as if he had taken my breath away. I found myself echoing his words.

"A daughter? I see."

There was silence. Something seemed, all at once, to have taken the heart out of the conversation. It floundered, fell flat; seemed, for a time, to die. I knew very well what that something was just as plainly as if it had been told to me.

It was that daughter of Sir Haselton Jardine.

It may seem odd. I had never seen the girl. I had never heard of her before. But, all the same, I hated her right then. She spoilt my dinner. That's a fact. And, straight on the spot, she made me stand to arms.

I knew he loved her. And it made me feel--well, I had never thought that a little thing like that could have made me feel so queer.

I had meant to talk to him about my plans for the future. To have asked his advice upon points on which I wished him to think I needed it. I wanted to beguile him into showing interest in what I had set my heart upon, until he had drifted, though but a little, into the current of my affairs. But, somehow, after all, I did not seem to care to try. At least, not then. I let him go.

He was very nice. I was conscious that the man was almost like a woman in the quickness of his intuition. That, if it came to shooting I should have to move like lightning to get my shot in first. That he would detect any intended movement towards my gun even before the intention was wholly formed. And instinct told me that he was aware that I had perceived the intonation with which he had said "He has a daughter," and that it rankled. I do believe that for the first time in my life I had given myself away. And to a man. But this man could read the stars. And after dinner, he was particularly nice, because he happened to have read them.

After he was gone I sat for ever so long in the drawing-room forming plans. The first wild notion had come to me before. I gave it form and fashion then. I, too, would buck the tiger. Why not? Who would have more cause than I? It is a peculiarity of my constitution that, whatever the game, I always play better when the stakes are high.

I would win my friend, the gentleman. I would go the limit every time until I did.

In winning him I should win all. Everything my soul desired. At a single coup, the game.

First of all, I should win the man. He was well worth winning--just the man.

Then I should win social recognition. By becoming Mrs. Reginald Townsend I should be spared years of struggling--struggling, too, which might only bring failure at the end. He wanted a clever wife, and he should have her. He wanted a good wife, and he should have her too. He wanted a wife who believed in him; he would never meet one who believed in him more than I did. He wanted a wife with money; probably there was not in England half a dozen possible women who had as much as I had. Given a wife who had all these things I doubted if there was a drawing-room in which he could not make her welcome--from the Queen's own drawing-room, downwards or upwards. Practically he could place Society--with a big S!--at her feet, to do with as she chose.

To think of it! What a realisation of one's dream. What a short and what an easy cut to the Kingdom of the Blest!

Again, in making him the captive of my sword and of my bow, I should be giving one to the daughter of Sir Haselton Jardine. That, also, would be worth the doing. To dislike any one is a mistake. I reminded myself of that over and over again. But I knew I hated her.

As to whether I should be able to win him--on that point I had no shadow of doubt. It was true that the overtures might have to come from me, but they should come. And when they came they should come in a guise which he would find resistless.

Or we should see!

I slept very well that night--soothed by my own fancies. I remember very well that, when I was in my bedroom, just before I got between the sheets, I looked at the hand which he had held in his, and, just where his hand pressed it, I kissed it. It was a silly thing to do, but it did me good.

I wondered if, when he had held her hand in his, she was silly too. But, no doubt, she had freehold rights--or she thought that she had freehold rights--to what was much better worth the kissing.

Never mind! But bide a wee!

Days slipped by. At his next examination before the magistrates things began to look very black indeed against poor Tommy. I suppose the witnesses supposed they spoke the truth--so far as I could see, there was no possible cause for their wishing to do otherwise. But how they lied! Unconsciously, we will hope, and in their haste. It was becoming plainer and plainer that unless something, as yet wholly unsuspected, turned up in his favour, Tommy bade fair to hang.

Well, I have seen a man hung on suspicion of stealing a horse, and directly he was hung the horse in question has turned up underneath the thief that really stole him. As Mr. Townsend observed, sometimes it seems as if the innocent were born to hang. If everything in life were certain, where would be the sport, and what would be the use of betting?

It is the element of chance that makes the game!

One afternoon something happened which struck me as being distinctly curious. It was after lunch. I was thinking of taking the air. I had just gone into the drawing-room for a moment, when there came a knocking at the door.

"Now, who's that, I wonder?" I stopped the servant on her way to answer the door. "Eliza, let me know who it is before you say I'm in."

I knew who it was directly she opened the door. It was no good telling him that I was not in. He did not even ask. He came himself to see. It was old Jack Haines, and with him was a stranger.

It was the stranger who made me open my eyes. I had to stare. For he was--and yet he wasn't--the living, breathing image of my friend, the gentleman. He was Reginald Townsend, with a difference. And the difference--which was all the difference--was this: Reginald Townsend was a gentleman; this man was emphatically quite another kind of thing.

And Jack Haines treated him as if he was quite another kind of thing. He treated him as if he had been nothing but a cur, and the man bore himself as if he was used to being treated like a cur.

Mr. Haines strode into the middle of the room. He pointed to the stranger.

"You see this creature?"

It was an awkward sort of introduction. I scarcely knew what to make of it. The more I looked at him, the more I wondered who the man could be.

"He's a detective--a private detective. That's what he calls himself. If he is, he's the English kind. When first I landed on this darned old island I went to him, like the fool I was, and I said, 'I want to find my girl.' And he said, 'I'm the man to find her.' And I said, 'You are?' And he said, 'You bet. It's only a question of money, that's all it is.' And that's all it has been ever since--a question of money. That's the only time he told the truth. If you knew the amount of money he's had out of me you would laugh. He kept thinking that he's found a clue, and wanting twenty pounds to find out if he'd found it, and every time he got that twenty pounds he found out he hadn't. And now he thinks he's found another clue, and I've brought him along with me in here to find out what sort of clue he thinks he has found."

The man coughed behind his hand. He puffed out his chest. He drew himself upright. He tried to think himself a man.

"You are severe, Mr. Haines, uncommonly severe. Even detectives are but fallible. But, on this occasion I do not only think I have a clue, I am positive--quite positive."

"What's the figure?"

"Figure? Expenses--merely!"

"And what's the clue?"

The man seemed a trifle fidgety.

"I am afraid that I am scarcely in a position at present----"

Mr. Haines cut him uncivilly short.

"Stow that! You don't touch a nickel till you tell me what's the clue."

The man cleared his throat. He looked round and round the room, as though looking for the clue. Mr. Haines's inquisition seemed more than he had bargained for.

"As you are aware, Mr. Haines, I have searched all England for Miss Louise O'Donnel."

"Judging from the amount of money you've had I should think you've searched all Europe."

Again the stranger cleared his throat, as if he deprecated the allusion.

"You probably have it in your recollection that at one time I believed that I had traced her to Liverpool. Circumstances have recently occurred which have brought to me the knowledge that in so believing I was right. She is in Liverpool."

Mr. Haines began to tremble like a leaf. I saw how easily this man, or any other man, could play upon what seemed to have become the dominating passion of his existence.

"Whereabouts in Liverpool? Tell me that!"

"Unfortunately, at this moment, that is beyond the limit of my power. But this I will undertake to do. If you are disposed to expend a further sum of fifty pounds I will undertake to place you in communication with her within, yes, certainly, within fourteen days."

"You swear it?"

The man threw himself into an attitude which he, no doubt, intended to be sublime. "As one gentleman to another I undertake, sir, to do what I have said."

"You shall have your fifty pounds. I will go and get it. Stay here." Mr. Haines turned to me. "Do you mind my leaving him here while I go and cash a cheque? I want to give him the money in your presence, and on conditions which you shall hear."

"I have no objection."

I had not. Indeed, I had been wondering how I might find the opportunity to ask the man a question which should be entirely between ourselves. Whether he was as willing to be left alone with me as I was to be left alone with him, is more than I can say. He ought to have been. Mr. Haines took me at my word. He stamped through the hall and from the house. The stranger and I were tÊte-À-tÊte.

He did not seem to be exactly at his ease. Mr. Haines had not offered him a chair. He seemed to think that he would like one. Indeed, he said as much.

"With your permission, madam, I will sit down."

"I would rather you did not."

He was about to act on his own suggestion when my words arrested him. He seemed disconcerted, looking at me as if wondering what it was that I might mean. I went on, "Of course you are lying again?"

The man drew himself up with what he intended to be an air of dignity.

"Lying?--Again?--Madam! May I inquire what you mean?"

"Pray don't put on that sort of air with me. I understand you very well, my man. You are too common a type not to be understood. Of course, you are lying again and of course I shall tell Mr. Haines so when he returns." He looked as if he felt that in exchanging Mr. Haines' society for mine he had made a change for the worse. "Or, rather, I shall tell Mr. Haines unless you give me satisfactory answers to the questions I am about to put to you."

"I assure you, madam, that, as a gentleman----"

"Stop! Confine yourself to answering my questions. On your answers will depend whether or not I shall keep silence. What is your name?"