"As it was told to me. She is dead." "Dead! Mr. Haines?" "Yes, murdered. As I saw it in the vision, so it is." Mrs. Carruth looked at Mr. Haines as if she felt that he had a somewhat singular method of imparting information--especially of such a peculiar kind. "If what you say is correct, you have such a queer way of putting things. I never can quite make you out. I need not tell you how sorry I am." "You have cause for sorrow. The grief is about half yours." "Half mine? What do you mean?" "I have loved you, true and faithful, since the first time I set eyes on you. Before ever Daniel did." The sudden change of subject seemed, not unnaturally, to take the lady aback. "What nonsense are you talking? What did you mean by saying the grief's half mine?" "I'm coming to it, in time. I want to put to you this question. Will you have me, now, just as I am?" "I will not; neither now or ever. How many more times am I to tell you that? Jack Haines, I do believe you're more than half insane." "I may be. So'll you be before I'm through." Raising the big forefinger of his right hand, he wagged it at her solemnly. "There's some one come between us. Yes. That aristocrat." "Aristocrat? What do you mean?" "You know what I mean. Yes. The blood-stained Townsend. I knew he was stained with blood when first I saw him inside this room. But I did not know with whose blood he was stained, or I would have called him to his account right there and then. I did not know he was stained with the blood of my girl." "Jack!" The name came from her with an unconscious recurrence to the days which were gone. "Yes. This is the man who has stolen what ought by rights to have been mine--the slayer of my girl." "It's not true! You coward! You know you lie!" "I do not lie." "You do lie! What proof have you?" "Enough and to spare--for him, for me, and for you." "Out with it, then. Let's hear what some of it's like." Mrs. Carruth was standing by the little centre table. Rising from his chair, Mr. Haines went and stood at the other side of it. Resting his hands on the edges, he leaned over it towards her. "Have you heard of the Three Bridges tragedy?" She looked at him just once. In that one look she saw something, on his face or in his eyes, which, to use an expressive idiom, seemed to take the stiffening all out of her. She dropped into a chair as if he had knocked her into it. She caught at the arms. Her complexion assumed a curious tinge of yellow. There was a moment's pause. Then, from between her rigid lips, there came one word. "Yes." "The woman who was killed was Loo--my Loo." She shuddered, as if attacked by sudden ague. "It's a lie!" "It's not a lie. It's gospel truth. And Townsend killed her." Her rejoinder, under ordinary circumstances, might have struck him as an odd one. "You can't prove it." "I can prove it. And the police can prove it, too."