Then she remembered. Some people said that John had killed George Brooklyn, and some said that George Brooklyn had killed John Prinsep. She had heard that there was evidence, though she did not know what it was. Could either of these things be true, and, if there was even a chance that either might be true, how could she go and talk about it to Isabelle? She did not find an answer to her questions; but all the same she made up her mind to go. She was capable of conceiving the thought that the two men might have quarrelled, and that the one might have killed the other; but she was not capable of believing the thought which she could conceive. She knew that they might quarrel—that they had done so often enough; but they would not kill. And even if they had—she barely formulated the thought—what did it matter now? She and Isabelle were both desolate and in need of comfort. She would go. So Charis, having made—to her understudy’s secret delight—her arrangements at the theatre, set off to find Isabelle—for that was the name by which she still called Marian Brooklyn. Isabelle, she knew, was still at the hotel—the Cunningham—and she had not far to go. In a few minutes the two women were in each other’s arms. It was not a question of who had killed their lovers; they both needed comfort, and they sought together such comfort as could be found. By-and-by, Charis found herself telling the story of the inspector’s visit. She had never before spoken openly to Mrs. George about John Prinsep; but now she told the whole story, only to find that most of it was known to Marian already. Marian told her how Carter Woodman had come to see her, and asked her to use her influence to break the entanglement between Charis and John Prinsep, and how she had indignantly refused and had threatened to go and tell John straight out that he ought to marry her. Charis did not try to defend Prinsep: she realised that there could be no defence for what he had done; but she told Marian that she had loved him, and that she believed he had loved her—in a way—and would certainly have married her but for his fear of Sir Vernon’s opposition. She told Marian that it was quite clear from the inspector’s manner that he suspected Walter Brooklyn of one, if not of both, murders, and at last she told her of Walter Brooklyn’s visit to herself, and of the infamous threat he had made.