An hour or two after this a cab stopped at the door, and a young lady dressed in black sent in her name and a minute later was shown into Hewitt’s room. It was Miss Mary Rewse. She wore a heavy veil, and all she said she uttered in evidently deep distress of mind. Hewitt did what he could to calm her, and waited patiently. At length she said: “I felt that I must come to you, Mr. Hewitt, and yet now that I am here I don’t know what to say. Is it the fact that Mr. Bowyer has commissioned you to investigate the circumstances of my poor brother’s death, and to discover the whereabouts of Mr. Main?” “Yes, Miss Rewse, that is the fact. Can you tell me anything that will help me?” “No, no, Mr. Hewitt, I fear not. But it is such a dreadful thing, and Mr. Bowyer is--I’m afraid he is so much prejudiced against Mr. Main that I felt I ought to do something--to say something at least to prevent you entering on the case with your mind made up that he has been guilty of such an awful thing. He is really quite incapable of it, I assure you.” “Pray, Miss Rewse,” Hewitt replied, “don’t allow that apprehension to disturb you. If Mr. Main is, as you say, incapable of such an act as perhaps he is suspected of, you may rest assured no harm will come to him. So far as I am concerned, at any rate, I enter the case with a perfectly open mind. A man in my profession who accepted prejudices at the beginning of a case would have very poor results to show indeed. As yet I have no opinion, no theory, no prejudice--nothing indeed but a bare outline of facts. I shall derive no opinion and no theory from anything but a consideration of the actual circumstances and evidences on the spot. I quite understand the relation in which Mr. Main stands in regard to yourself and your family. Have you heard from him lately?” “Not since the letter informing us of my brother’s death.” “Before then?” Miss Rewse hesitated. “Yes,” she said, “we corresponded. But--but there was really nothing--the letters were of a personal and private sort--they were--” “Yes, yes, of course,” Hewitt answered, with his eyes fixed keenly on the veil which Miss Rewse still kept down. “Of course I understand that. Then there is nothing else you can tell me?” “No, I fear not. I can only implore you to remember that no matter what you may see and hear, no matter what the evidence may be, I am sure, sure, _sure_ that poor Stanley could never do such a thing.” And Miss Rewse buried her face in her hands. Hewitt kept his eyes on the lady, though he smiled slightly, and asked, “How long have you known Mr. Main?” [Illustration: “‘HOW LONG HAVE YOU KNOWN MR. MAIN?’”] “For some five or six years now. My poor brother knew him at school, though, of course, they were in different forms, Mr. Main being the elder.” “Were they always on good terms?” “They were always like brothers.”