"Come, Gladys; let's try to get back to where we were--to perfect understanding. Tell me your doubts, no matter how insoluble they may seem to you. I promise you I'll solve them." "I'm sure you will; I feel you could solve anything, but I am afraid of your solution." Before he had an inkling of her intention she had passed rapidly across the floor and from the room. "Gladys!" he exclaimed. But it was too late; she had gone. He stood staring at the door through which she had vanished, irresolute. Should he follow her, possibly to her bedroom, and entreat her for a hearing? For once in his life he had been taken wholly unawares; he had not suspected that this Gladys was in the Gladys he had known. Often a man lives to a ripe old age, ignorant how many women are contained in the one woman he knows best. Then, as if unwittingly, his fingers strayed to the pocket in which were the proceeds of the cheque he had cashed while Gladys, without in the cab, had supposed him to have gone into the bank for his letter-case. Apparently the touch decided him; often a little thing brought him to an instant decision. Without making any further effort to gain the lady's ear, he buttoned his coat across his chest, took his hat and stick from off the table, and quietly left the house. CHAPTER XXV STELLA'S BETROTHAL FEAST That evening Rodney Elmore was at a dinner given at a famous restaurant in honour of his engagement to Stella Austin, quite a different sort of meal from that at which he had assisted at the Misses Claughton's house in Kensington. If in his manner there was an unusual touch of nervousness, it was not unbecoming; the bride that was to be was not entirely herself. He met her as, with her father and mother, she entered the hall. She said to him, as he fell in by her side: "I did hope, Rodney, that you would have come to fetch me." "My dear, it's only by the skin of my teeth that I've got here myself! Do you think that I wouldn't have come if I could?" She said nothing in reply, but as she passed towards the ladies' cloak-room there was a look on her face which almost suggested tears. Her mother's manner, as she greeted him, was not too genial: "So you are here? Well, I suppose that's something!" Mr. Austin, as he deposited his hat and coat with the attendant, seemed very much in the same key. "We should have been here some minutes ago, only Stella would have it you were coming to fetch her; we should have been waiting for you still if she had had her way. How was it you didn't come? She's quite disappointed; rather a pity that the evening should have begun with a misunderstanding of that sort." Rodney drew the gentleman aside. "I take it, Mr. Austin, that you haven't heard the news?" "To what news do you refer?" "It is now stated that my uncle did not commit suicide, but was murdered." "But I thought the coroner's jury had returned a verdict of suicide."