“Probably that has nothing whatever to do with it and I am vexing my brains to no purpose,” she thought as she desisted from her examination and went along, according to her original intention, to the study. Here, as she hoped, she found Philip Castle, who was engaged in going through and docketing the dead man’s papers ready for the perusal of the family solicitor. His face brightened when he saw who his visitor was, and he rose from his chair with a cordial greeting— “Why, Evelyn,” he exclaimed, “come in! I don’t feel as if I’d seen you for a hundred years.” “I’ve come—on business, Philip,” she said with some hesitation: he looked now so different from the white, excited man she had been recalling for so many troubled hours. He had recovered his self-possession, and, though still looking tired and a little shaken, was apparently much as usual. “Oh!” he said with a slight frown of surprise. “Well, come in and sit down, won’t you?” He placed the armchair for her as he spoke. She shut the door and sat down. Now that she was here she found words difficult; he saw that she was troubled, and sat down himself gravely to hear what it was she wanted to tell him. “Philip,” she said at last, “we’ve known each other a long time.” “Yes, indeed,” he assented warmly, wondering what was coming. “Is there—is there anything about this horrible business you can tell me that you can’t tell anybody else?” He started from his chair. “Evelyn!” he exclaimed, “What do you mean?” His astonishment at her question sounded so genuine that she in her turn stared at him in blank surprise. “Don’t you know who did it?” she asked, almost anxiously. “Know who did it?” he repeated. “Know who did it? Evelyn!” Reproach, bewilderment was in his voice. “You don’t?” she cried. “What does such a question mean?” he asked, looking at her in a strange way. “Why should I know? Is it a way of saying you think I did it?” “No, no!” she answered. “I don’t think you did it.” “Thank heaven for that! But you think I know who did it?” She looked at him miserably. “I did think so,” she said in a low voice; her theory, the one theory to which after hours of restless, unhappy doubt she could fit without too great pain the facts her reason had given her, was crumbling in ruins. He began to walk in extreme agitation up and down the room; he was obviously cut to the heart by her thought. She watched him and could think of nothing except that she had been wretchedly wrong as usual. Presently he stopped in front of her and said quite quietly: “Evelyn, as you said at first, we have known each other a long time; d’you mind telling me why you thought I knew?” She felt herself placed by her own action in a dreadful dilemma: she could not tell him the torment of doubt through which she had passed, about Celia and about him; yet she recognized the justice of the question and the moderation with which he spoke.