Philip himself opened the door to her. She gave her cheek to be kissed and then walked straight in.

"Is Monty here?" were her first words.

"No. I think he's gone out for a walk."

"A walk, at this time of night!"

Philip shrugged his shoulders. "What brings you here, Mollie?" he said.

She was busy untying her veil. "What do you suppose? Everything, of course."

"Have you had dinner or supper?"

"I had a cup of cocoa at Audrey Cunningham's, and don't want anything else. Now why didn't you answer my telegram, and why didn't you write again as you promised?" She threw the hat and veil on the table and her gloves after them and stood before Philip.

"How are the children?" he asked.

"Perfectly well."

"And Joan?"

Her only answer to this last was a long look. Then she walked to the little Empire sofa and sat down. He might stand if he wished.

"Well?" she said at last. This was after a full minute, during which time he had stood by the table idly fingering her veil. Then suddenly his fingers pushed the veil aside, and he crossed to the sofa and sat down by her.

"What is it you want to know, darling?" he asked.

"Everything—every little thing from beginning to end," she replied.

"You've seen that I don't want to tell you?"

"Yes, I've seen that."

"And that I probably have my reasons?"

"Oh—reasons!"

"Reasons that are stronger than ever at this moment?"

"Will they go on getting much stronger? If so I can only warn you that a breaking-point will come."

"Yes. I'm very near it."

"And so am I, Philip."

There was no mistaking her tone. It did not mean that if he continued to shut her out like this she would do anything violent—live apart from him, become merely his housekeeper, or anything of that kind. It meant enormously more than that. Where confidence and trust are, there are few divergences that do not presently right themselves, few differences that cannot be resolved; but where these are absent nothing is right. Every word is possible peril, every silence a hanging sword. In all my acquaintance I know of no happier marriage than the Esdailes'. You never go into their house and feel that the air is still charged with some scene that your arrival has interrupted, you never leave wondering what weapons will be picked up again the moment your back is turned. Philip is not without his tempers nor Mollie without her own purposes, but it stops at that. The rest is brave decencies, with I know not what tenderer stuff behind. This it was that seemed for the moment to be in peril.

But suddenly she put her hand on his. She did not speak; the hand spoke for her. The next moment his other hand had fallen on hers again, so that both enclosed it. Then their eyes too met.

"It would be an awful thing to risk, Phil," she said quietly.

His eyes begged her. "Won't you let me carry it a little longer alone?"

"I don't believe you can. And if you can," she added, "I don't see what we got married for."

"But it will be rotten for you too."

"When have I shrunk from that?" she asked.

"Never," he replied in a low voice.

And so Mollie Esdaile too took her portion of the burden.

"Well, where shall we begin?" he asked, with a sigh that it must be so.

"You know best. But tell me first why you didn't write."

"I hadn't seen young Smith. I haven't yet as a matter of fact. But——," he drew her head to his breast, and there were some moments during which he whispered into her ear.

For all his care and guarding it was not possible that she should not at least tremble. But she did not start within his arms. The tremor passed, and her dry lips repeated—

"Shot him!"

"For some reason or other. I don't think either of us can quite tell Joan that, can we?"

"Shot him! Chummy!"

"There's no doubt about it. It was Monty who picked up the pistol. Neither you nor I can very well tell Audrey that, can we?"

"Monty found the pistol!"

"And I picked up the cartridge-shell myself. The police were round here at six o'clock on Friday morning looking for them."

"The police! Here!"

In spite of all, Philip could not restrain a little laugh. "Oh, they didn't find anything. They don't when they've given you warning the night before. By that time both pistol and case had been at the bottom of silver-flowing Tamesis for six hours. I dropped 'em in myself from the middle of Albert Bridge. Do you begin to see what you're in for, my poor darling?"

It was doubtful whether she yet did. She could still only repeat, "Chummy shot him! Does that mean——?" Her horrified stare finished the question.

"Oh, I don't think so," he answered quickly, "at any rate not yet. Naturally both Hubbard and I have got to stand by Chummy for the present."

"Then somebody saw Monty pick up the pistol?"

"For the police to know anything about it, you mean? Well, as a matter of fact that's the purest bad luck. There happens to be a fellow called Westbury, confound him, and that beastly bullet seems to have fetched up somewhere in his house; he lives just across the way there. That's all the police have to go on now that the other things are safely in the river mud."

Slowly it was sinking into her mind. Her eyes closed for a moment as she felt the first faint strain of the weight of it. This came with the thought of Joan.

"But—but——" she said faintly, "—that poor child——?"

"Joan? I suppose she is wondering what's happened?"

"Wondering what's happened.... You may as well know, Philip—it's a mere trifle at this stage—that they're most awfully thick—far more than you've been told. You know what boys and girls are nowadays. And now comes this horrible silence, except for that one little note from him——"

"Has she had a note from him?" Philip asked quickly. "From the hospital?"

"There was no address on it. I suppose it was from the hospital?" she in her turn asked in quick alarm.

"Yes, it wasn't from a prison. When did she get this note?"

"Yesterday morning."

"Did she show it to you?"

"Yes. It simply said he'd had this spill, but was all right, and she wasn't to be alarmed."

"He didn't mention incidentally that he'd shot a man?"

"Of course not. I don't believe he had."

Philip passed this last point.

"Well, as he's written once I suppose he'll go on writing. He's heaps better as a matter of fact. So it won't be too hard on her. Anyway, she'll have to grin and bear it."

"I did hold out hopes that I might be able to take him back with me," Mollie ventured.

"You won't be able to do that," said Philip with decision. "Quite apart from his being fit to travel, we've only gone a certain way in all this, you know. He'll still have matters to explain. And till he does, I'm afraid Audrey Cunningham will have to make the best of things too, like Joan. It wouldn't do her any good to know that Monty was liable to arrest at any moment."

"But is he?" said Mollie, startled.

"Of course he is. So am I. So are you. So would she be."

"But why?"

In spite of his explanation, I don't think she understood. I don't think she understands to this day. I don't think that at the bottom of her anti-social heart any woman does. A delayed wedding or a post without a lover's letter is a far greater thing than a capital charge in which all who conspire are principals.

Then, in spite of her fatigue, her skeptical common sense came to her aid. Philip might involve himself in a web of unelucidated stuff of which one-tenth perhaps was fact of sorts and the rest pure speculation; but she knew Chummy. The thought of Chummy as a murderer was absurd beyond words. Whatever the explanation might be it certainly was not that. And, yawning as she rose, she told Philip so.

"And that's that," she concluded. "Now do let's go to bed. Of course, if you think Chummy's a murderer I quite see why you didn't write and why you don't want to tell Audrey and all the rest of it, but you'll find it's all a mistake. There's something you don't know, or else there's been an accident of some kind. If you seriously want me to believe that Chummy Smith.... What's the matter, darling?"

The last words were a quick, startled cry. She did not know what it was that lurked at the bottom of the eyes that were looking so deeply and somberly into her own, but she feared already. His head was slowly shaking from side to side.

"Philip! What do you mean?" she cried in agitation.

Still the head shook. It was impossible for her mind not to fly back to that moment, now nearly five days ago, when he had stood blinking in the doorway with a candle in one hand and a jar of liqueur in the other.

"Tell me quickly what you mean, Philip!" she cried again.

"I saw it."

She fell back. "You——?"

"It wasn't an accident, and there isn't anything I don't know."

"You——?"

The slow sideways shake changed to one single nod. The next moment his arms were about her and he was leading her to the sofa again. He sighed. There was no help for it now. If she would have it she must have it all.

"It's the only thing I haven't told you. We may as well get it over," he said.

Nor did he whisper this time. He spoke in his usual voice, using the plainest English he could.

But what it was that Philip Esdaile told his wife you must guess for a little while longer. She was the first living soul to know. And it was a very different thing from that which she had left Santon to hear.

For it was this overwhelmingly extraordinary yet stupendously ordinary thing that sent her round to Audrey Cunningham the next morning, but without comfort for her, with no plans for settling the wedding out of hand.

It was this same thing that took her back to Santon on the Wednesday, without Chummy, without help for Joan.

It was this same thing that puzzled Monty Rooke's brain as he took his midnight walk that night down Roehampton Lane, driven from Audrey Cunningham's company and sick of the sight of Philip and all his works.

And it was this and nothing else that Cecil Hubbard so much wanted to know when he knitted his honest brows over hydrophones, sound-ranging, or whatever other mysterious apparatus it was that Philip Esdaile might have hidden away in his cellar.