Gideon now had something on his mind which made him even more peculiar than usual. Jane had been very strange and secretive about his visit there on the fatal evening. He and Oliver had probably quarrelled. Only Jane had seen Oliver fall. * * * * * Had she? * * * * * HOW HAD THAT QUARREL ENDED? This awful question shot into my mind like an arrow, and I sat straight up in bed with a start. How, indeed? I shuddered, but unflinchingly faced an awful possibility. If it were indeed so, it was my duty to leave no stone unturned to discover and expose the awful truth. Painful as it would be, I must not shrink. A second terrible question came to me. If my suspicion were correct, how much did Jane know or guess? Jane had been most strange and reserved. I remembered how she had run down to meet the wretched man that first morning, when we were there; I remembered her voice, rather hurried, saying, 'Arthur! Mother and dad are upstairs. Come in here,' and how she took him into the dining-room alone. Did Jane know all? Or did she only suspect? I could scarcely believe that she would wish to shield her husband's murderer, if he were that. Yet.... why had she told me that she had seen the accident herself? If, indeed, my terrible suspicion were justified, and if Jane was in the secret, it seemed to point to a graver condition of things than I had supposed. No girl would lie to shield her husband's murderer unless ... unless she was much fonder of him than a married woman has any right to be. I resolved quickly, as I always do. First, I must save my child from this awful man. Secondly, I must discover the truth as expeditiously as possible, shrinking from no means. Thirdly, if I discovered the worst, and it had to be exposed, I must see that Jane's name was kept entirely out of it. The journalistic squabbles and mutual antipathy of the two men would be all that would be necessary to account for their quarrel, together with Gideon's probably intoxicated state that evening. I heard Percy moving downstairs still, and I nearly went down to him to communicate my suspicions to him at once. But, on second thoughts, I refrained. Percy was worried with a great many things just now. Besides, he might only laugh at me. I would wait until I had thought it over and had rather more to go on. Then I would tell him, and he should make what use he liked of it in the papers. How interested he would be if the man who was one of his bitterest journalistic foes, who fought so venomously everything that he and his press stood for, and who was the editor-designate of the possible new anti-Pinkerton daily, should be proved to be the murderer of his son-in-law. What a _scoop_! The vulgar journalese slang slid into my mind strangely, as light words will in grave moments.