Ralph had formed a very just estimate of Josephine’s power of self-control. But he did expect that the unexpected scene which met her eyes and the sudden and unexpected sight of him would shake it. Nothing of the kind. She stopped short, gazed round the room, took in the trussed-up Leonard and Ralph’s indignant face in a glance that lasted perhaps a second and a half. Then she pushed up her veil and said in the most casual voice: “What are you looking at me like that for, dear?” He stared at her with all his eyes; he did not wish to lose a quiver of her eyelids, or the faintest twitch of her lips. He said slowly: “Bridget Rousselin has been murdered.” “Bridget Rousselin--murdered?” she said under her breath. “Yes. The actress we saw last night, the one who was wearing the bandeau of jewels. You’re not going to tell me that you don’t know who she is, for you’re here, in her house, and you had instructed Leonard to let you know directly he had done the job.” Her self-control indeed went. With a horror-stricken face and starting eyes, she cried: “Leonard?... Leonard?... He has----” “Yes,” declared Ralph. “He’s murdered Bridget Rousselin. I caught him in the very act of throttling her.” Her legs seemed to fail her; she sank trembling on to a chair and stammered: “The b-blackguard.... The b-b-blackguard.... It’s impossible!” And on a rising inflection in which with each word the note of terror grew clearer and clearer, she cried: “He’s committed a murder?... A murder?... It’s impossible!... He swore to me that he would never kill!... He swore it!... I can’t believe it!” Was she sincere, or was it all comedy? Had Leonard acted in a sudden access of madness, or in accordance with instructions which bade him murder if the ruse failed. Formidable questions to which Ralph could not give the answer. She raised her head, saw the accusation in his eyes, jerked herself to her feet and with hands outstretched towards him cried: “Why are you looking at me like that, Ralph? Oh, you can’t suspect me of a horrible crime like that! You can’t!... You can’t believe that I knew of it.... That I ordered or permitted such an abominable crime!... Tell me you don’t!” Almost brutally he caught her by the shoulder and forced her on to the chair again. Then, crossing his arms, he took two or three paces up the room and back; then, catching her again by the shoulder and glaring into her eyes, he said slowly in the accents of an inexorable accuser and even enemy: “Listen to me, Josine. If you don’t, this very instant, make a clean breast of it and tell me the whole story of this business and all the secret machinations which complicate it, I’m going to treat you as my mortal enemy. I’m going to take you out of this house, by force if I have to, to the nearest police station and denounce you as the accomplice of Leonard in the murder of Bridget Rousselin. Then you can get out of it as best you can. Are you going to tell me, or are you not?” CHAPTER VIII.