“I regret to say that my impression very much resembles that of your friend. I see a great change in her since I last had any conversation with her. Yes, I fear that there is something amiss, and that it is no longer well for her to live in that cottage, with a young girl for her only companion. It would be far better for her to be in a private asylum—where, hers being a very mild case, life might be made easy and agreeable for her. I know my friend Mainwaring to be a man of infinite benevolence, and that there would be nothing wanting to lighten her burden.” He sighed heavily. There was a look in his face of unutterable care, of a despondency which saw no issue, no ray of light far off in the thickening gloom. Theodore thought he looked aged by several years since yesterday, as if the evidence of the pistol had struck him to the heart. “He knows now that it was his own sin that brought about this evil,” thought Theodore. He could conceive the agony of the father’s heart, knowing that for his own wrong-doing his innocent daughter had been called upon to make so terrible an expiation. He could penetrate into the dark recesses of the sinner’s mind, where remorse for that early error, and for all the false steps which it had necessitated, dominated every other thought. Till yesterday James Dalbrook might have supposed his sin a thing of the past, atoned for and forgiven—its evil consequences suffered in the past, the account ruled off in the book of fate, and the acquittance given. To-day he knew that his sin had cost him his daughter’s happiness; and over and above that horror of the past there lay before him the hazard of some still greater horror in the future. Could anybody wonder that his eyes were sunken and dull, as they never had been before within Theodore’s memory? Could anybody wonder at the strained look in the broad, open forehead, beneath which the eyes looked out wide apart under strongly-marked brows; or at the hard lines about the mouth, which told of sharpest mental pain? * * * * * Late that evening, when Lady Cheriton had gone to bed, Theodore approached the subject of the pistol. “Did you compare the ball with the revolver that was found yesterday?” he asked. “Yes. The ball fits the bore. I don’t know that the fact goes to prove much—but so far as it goes it is now in the knowledge of our local police. Unfortunately they are not the most brilliant intellects I know of.” “If you will let me have the pistol to-night before we go to bed I will go up to town by an early train to-morrow and take it to Scotland Yard, as you suggested.” “I suggested nothing of the kind, my dear Theodore. I attach very little importance to the discovery of the pistol as a means towards discovering the murderer. I said you might take it to Scotland Yard if you liked—that was all.” “I should like to do so. I should feel better satisfied——”