Finally, he rose and walked across the room. "You see," he said, a little wearily, but quite sane, now, "I've a bad streak in me. My father was a Spaniard and he killed his own uncle. The Loria line is a series of criminals. Aunt Lucy never knew this, for my parents lived always abroad. But blood will tell. And my father, after he killed my uncle, followed it up by taking his own life,--like this,----" Though Stone caught the gesture and sprang to prevent it, Loria was too quick for him. He had snatched a dagger from the table, and plunged it into his heart. Both men leaped at him, but it was all over in an instant. Carr Loria had himself dealt the punishment for his crimes. "Perhaps it's as well," said Stone, musingly. "A trial, and all that, would have been awful for his cousin, and the family connections. Now the matter can be disposed of with far less notoriety and publicity." "Yes," agreed Pitts. Fleming Stone waited till morning to tell Pauline of her cousin's death. She was wide-eyed and pathetically sad, but composed. "It is all so dreadful," she said, "but, Fleming, I knew it before I left New York. I didn't _know_ it, exactly, but I felt sure it must be so, and I had to come here to see. Then I found Carr so gay and light-hearted I thought I must be mistaken, and I was glad, too. Then when you came, I couldn't make up my mind whether you suspected Carr, or whether----" "Whether I came only to see you," supplied Stone. "It was both, dear." "What made you think of Carr, in the first place?" "Because there was no real evidence against any one else, though the police were making things dangerous for you, my little girl." Stone held her close, as if even yet there might be a hint of danger. "And I made Miss Frayne confess that she didn't really see you leave your aunt's room that night, though she did honestly think that you were in there, and your aunt was talking to you. Nor you didn't see her actually leaving the room, did you?" "I only saw her with her hand on the door-knob. That was my first glimpse of her, and I thought she was coming out." "No; she thought of going in to apologize for her hasty temper. But, hearing a voice, she paused, and so thrilling was the talk she overheard, she waited there some minutes." "And then, you thought of Carr?" "I sized up all the people who had motive, and Loria was surely in that category. And then I found the powder-papers. Dear, those would have gone sorely against you if any one else had discovered them. I resolved to wrest the secret from those papers, and I did!" "You did? How?"