“Oh, Evie, how long you’ve been! I thought you had forgotten to come back, only I did not hear you pass. Have you heard any more?” “Poor child,” answered Evelyn tenderly, “why didn’t you stay in bed? I hoped you’d be asleep; I have only just left Aunt Eleanor. She was dreadfully upset, but she is a little better now, and Thompson is with her. Come to bed, dear; you won’t do any one any good by staying up.” “I couldn’t lie still; I tried,” answered Celia. “Does any one know how it happened?” “I haven’t heard anything more. Come, let’s try and rest together; I’m tired out.” Her appeal on her own behalf had been immediately successful. They had lain down together and succeeded in getting some much-needed rest. They had breakfasted upstairs, and then Evelyn had dressed, promising to remain with Celia if she stayed in bed. As she sat beside her friend, who seemed fragile indeed in the uneasy sleep of exhaustion, Evelyn’s lively curiosity as to the mysterious tragedy which had so suddenly come into their midst was at work. She had seen neither the body nor the hall, but knew now the general circumstances; the maid who attended her had naturally been brimming over with it, and had told her volubly, “she had had it from Mr. Birts himself that ’ow any one ’ad got in and murdered the master there in the ’all was an absolute riddle, seein’ as there weren’t nothing to show for it, no window open, none of the silver gorn nor nothink.” If that was really so, if there was indeed nothing to show for it, it could only have come from inside; she did not think of Humblethorne’s third alternative, namely, possible co-operation inside—she saw the problem simply in its elemental possibilities, if not from without, then from within. But there was no one, there could be no one inside the house who could conceivably be guilty of such an act. So far her thoughts had gone when, like a leaping flash of light, she remembered the way Philip had talked the preceding evening, a way she had at once denounced as melodramatic. Was it conceivable that any real meaning should then have been attached to it? The apparent absence of motive beyond general dislike had been perplexing her as it was already perplexing Humblethorne: he only concluded rather vaguely that there must have been some grave cause of disagreement between Sir Roger and the secretary who acted so strangely, and hoped to find something to justify the conclusion; but she knew of a grave cause. Was it possible that last night Sir Roger had carried out the threat he had been holding over Philip’s head and given him his dismissal? And, if so, what then? Had Philip in sudden passion struck him down? She remembered the unsettled way he had looked when he came to tell her; his “I am afraid he has been murdered” beat in her brain. Her vivid imagination reconstructed the scene of the blow: Sir Roger, just as he turned to go upstairs to bed, jerking out in his harshest way a