When, however, no less than seven men and five women of high rank and apparently without a care in the world had ended their lives within the first three weeks of July, the newspapers had begun to agitate to know the reason of this epidemic of suicides which exceeded even the epidemic of 1918, when Lord Hope-Cooper, Viscount Molesley, the Honorable Vera Froissart, Madame Leonora Vandervelt, Sir Stephen Lethbridge, Henry Hartsilver, and others, had died by their own hand. In Society, too, everybody had begun to talk. The mystery of Lord Froissart’s suicide comparatively recently, when his body had been found at the foot of the cliffs at Bournemouth, had never been solved. Now the hot weather was held by some to be responsible for the series of tragedies, but this theory was not general. Interviewed on the subject of the “epidemic” several eminent psychologists and scientists expounded their views in more or less complex language, the meaning of which most people failed to grasp. Indeed, the majority of those interviewed endeavored to convince the public that the series of tragedies was due to whatever cause they themselves happened to be interested in. Thus the spiritualists had theories concerning “souls” and “vampires” and the vengeance of people long dead; ecclesiastics were perfectly certain the prevalence of suicide was due to men’s, and especially to women’s, sinful way of living; followers of certain unconventional physicians’ views on eugenics attributed the outbreak to the effects of “unwholesome environment,” though in what way the dead people’s environment had been unwholesome they did not explain; while advocates of early Victorianism were ready to “prove” that the tragedies would have been unthinkable in their young days. All such speculation of course led nowhere, and served only to increase anxiety as well as alarm. The theory which enlisted most adherents was that folk lavishly endowed with this world’s goods were in the habit of exercising so little self-control that eventually their minds became affected, and finally unbalanced. This was, to some extent, the view held by Doctor Johnson, and he told Blenkiron as much when, happening to meet him one day at his club, their conversation drifted to the prevalent topic. “I am anxious about our common friend, Charlie Preston,” Blenkiron said presently. “Have you seen him lately?” “Not since Henley week,” Johnson replied. “What is the matter with him?” “I am certain he has something on his mind; he appears to me to have changed enormously within the last week or so.” “In what way?” “All the ‘vim’ seems to have gone out of him. He seems to be always preoccupied, always thinking--thinking. Often when I speak to him he doesn’t answer; in fact I don’t believe he hears. He used not to be like that.” “He is engaged to be married.” “I know, but I am positive that isn’t the reason. If it is, heaven prevent my ever becoming engaged!” and Blenkiron smiled rather grimly.