"Well, we must only try and do the best we can. Has the deceased any relatives--blood relatives, I mean?" "I don't know," said Paulton. "Yes, he has a brother, who lives in the south of Ireland," answered O'Brien. "Mr. Davenport was somewhat peculiar in his thoughts and habits, but his brother is an oddity." "Ah, that is not fortunate. No doubt he will want to know all about this unlucky affair. "And now, O'Brien, it is your turn. I want you to tell me all you know about this other man, Blake." "Well, I'll tell you all I know about the whole thing," said Jerry O'Brien. "Ay, do," said the solicitor, settling himself comfortably in his elbow chair. "The man who is dead, Louis Davenport, was a native of the south of Ireland, County Waterford, to be exact. His wife is about thirty-four, and he must have been about sixty when he died. She, too, is Irish; her maiden name was Butler. She comes of a good Cork family--the Butlers of Scrouthea. They were as poor as church mice. Davenport was rich, and had money, not land; and Marion Butler was a beauty, as my friend Paulton has told you. "About ten years ago, when Louis Davenport was elderly, and Marion Butler no longer very young, he proposed to her father for her. The father was delighted, for Davenport promised all sorts of comfortable things about money; but when the matter was spoken of to Miss Butler, they found a difficulty had to be faced, for Mr. Tom Blake stood in the way. "This Tom Blake is and was one of the most hopeless scamps in Europe. He is now about thirty-eight years of age, and has deserved hanging for every year of his life. He was in the army, to start with; he was kicked out of it. He tried the Turf for a while, until he was kicked out of that too. Then he turned his hand to card-sharping. What he's doing now, I don't know, except he may have gone in for a little murder. He's quite capable of it, I assure you, Pringle--quite capable of it." "And you say this Miss Butler had a strong predilection for this objectionable man?" "It amounted to nothing short of infatuation. As the account of the matter reached me, she was assured by people who were quite disinterested that he was a thorough scamp. They might as well have saved their breath. She would listen to all they had to say, and simply shake her head." "And how did they in the end over come this infatuation?" "They never overcame it at all. They got her to marry Davenport by appealing to the baseness of Blake's nature. Some friends of mine were very intimate with the Butlers at that time, and I heard the whole history of his abominable conduct. He was then in great extremities for money, and took a sum down to leave the country and hold no communication with her. That's the sort of man Tom Blake is." "But surely this woman whom he treated so vilely cannot care for him still--cannot have any regard for such a scurvy knave?"