"My dear boy, she loved you always. She knew and understood, and was sorry. And she never, never forgot the last time that you were in the house." Frank Littimer glanced across the room with a shudder. His eyes dwelt with fascination on the overturned table with its broken china and glass and wilted flowers in the corner. "It is not the kind of thing to forget," he said, hoaresly. "I can see my father now--" "Don't," Enid shuddered, "don't recall it. And your mother has never been the same since. I doubt if she will ever be the same again. From that day to this nothing has ever been touched in the house. And Henson comes here when he can and makes our lives hideous to us." "I fancy I shook him up to-night," Littimer said, with subdued triumph. "He seemed to shudder when I told him that I had found Van Sneck." Enid started from her chair. Her eyes were shining with the sudden brilliancy of unveiled stars. "You have found Van Sneck!" she whispered. "Where?" "Why, in the Brighton Hospital. Do you mean to say that you don't know about it, that you don't know that the man found so mysteriously in Mr. David Steel's house and Van Sneck are one and the same person?" Enid resumed her seat again. She was calm enough now. "It had not occurred to me," she said. "Indeed, I don't know why it should have done. Sooner or later, of course, I should have suggested to Mr. Steel to try and identify the man, but--" "My dear Enid, what on earth are you talking about?" "Nonsense," Enid said, in some confusion. "Things you don't understand at present, and things you are not going to understand just yet. I read in the papers that the man was quite a stranger to Mr. Steel. But are you certain that it _is_ Van Sneck?" "Absolutely certain. I went to the hospital and identified him." "Then there is no more to be said on that point. But you were foolish to tell Reginald." "Not a bit of it. Why, Henson has known it all along. You needn't get excited. He is a deep fellow, and nobody knows better than he how to disguise his feelings. All the same, he was just mad to know what I had discovered, you could see it in his face. Reginald Henson--" Littimer paused, open-mouthed, for Henson, dressed and wrapped ready for the journey, had come quietly into the drawing-room. The deadly pallor of his face, the white bandages about his throat, only served to render his appearance more emphatic and imposing. He stood there with the halo of dust about him, looking like the evil genius of the place. "I fear I startled you," he said, with a sardonic smile. "And I fear that in the stillness of the place I have overheard a great part of your conversation. Frank, I must congratulate you on your discretion, so far. But seeing that you are young and impressionable, I am going to move temptation out of your way. Enid, I am going on a journey." "I trust that it is a long one, and that it will detain you for a considerable period," Enid said, coldly.