Mr. Priestley beamed. “No, are you really? That is a great relief, a very great relief. That’s really a load off my mind. But in that case—well, would you mind telling me the real truth about this evening?” But Laura, though disposed to giggle, had not quite lost her head in her newly awakened sense of humour. She hastily searched her mind for a tale that should relieve Mr. Priestley’s mind as much as possible, without betraying her trust. “Well,” she said slowly, “what I told you first of all was near enough. I knew you weren’t Mullins, of course, but I was desperately anxious for some one to help me, so I just pretended to think you were. Besides,” she added severely, “I thought it would serve you right.” “I deserved it, I know,” agreed Mr. Priestley, but with no signs of contrition. “That man _has_ got some compromising letters of mine. He may have some miniatures too; I don’t know anything about that. But you needn’t let your conscience worry you about having shot him. He was a thorough blackguard, and you never did a better thing in your life.” “That’s a relief too,” murmured Mr. Priestley thoughtfully. “So far we seem to have been too busy for my conscience to have recovered from its shock, but doubtless I should have had a very bad time to-night if you hadn’t told me that. You’re—you’re sure he deserved it? Blackmailer, eh? If he was a blackmailer I’m not only not sorry,” said Mr. Priestley defiantly, “I’m glad. I’ve always considered shooting the only cure for blackmailers.” “He was, yes. Oh, he deserved it all right; please don’t worry about that. By the way,” Laura added curiously, “what were you going to do about it? Had you formed any sort of plan?” “Well,” Mr. Priestley, replied with diffidence, “I’d rather thought (after you were safe, of course) of going to the police and explaining the whole thing. It wasn’t murder, you see; only manslaughter. As it is, I’m not at all sure that I shall do anything.” “Don’t!” Laura said earnestly. “You can’t do any good, and you may do a lot of harm. Besides,” she went on, looking down her pretty nose, “I don’t really want to be brought into it, you know, as I certainly should be if you went to the police.” Mr. Priestley started slightly. “You! By Gad, yes; I was forgetting about that. Of course you mustn’t be brought into it. Your husband would never forgive you. And for that matter——” He coloured modestly. “Yes?” Laura encouraged. “Only that the circumstances are a little altered. I was looking on you as a young woman without—well, without a reputation to lose; in which case it wouldn’t matter a rap that you should sleep in this bed and I on the sofa over there in the same room. As it is, of course——!” Laura raised herself discreetly on an elbow and thumped a hard pillow into a semblance of softness. “Yes?” she said almost nonchalantly. “Well, I mean,” Mr. Priestley amplified, a little uncomfortably, “we don’t want to add divorce to our other crimes, do we?”