"Yes, they pulled him through somehow. Then he disappeared. The house in Norfolk and its contents were sold through a solicitor. A man that Lothian had, a decent enough servant and very much attached to his master, has been pensioned for life--an annuity, I think. He may know something. The general opinion in the village is that he does know something--I have kept on my house in Mortland Royal, you must know. But this Tumpany is as tight as wax. And that's all." "He has published nothing?" "Not a line of any sort whatever. I was dining with Amberley, the celebrated publisher, the other day. He published the two or three books of poems that made Lothian famous. But he has heard nothing. He even told me that there is a considerable sum due to Lothian which remains unclaimed. Of course Lothian is well off in other ways. But stay, though, I did hear a rumour!" "And what was that?" "Well, I dined at Amberley's house--they have a famous dining-room you must know, where every one has been, and it's an experience. There was a party after dinner, and I was introduced to a man called Toftrees--he's a popular novelist and a great person in his own way I believe." Julia Daly nodded. She was intensely interested. "I know the name," she said. "Go on." "Well, this fellow Toftrees, who seems a decent sort of man, told me that he believed that Gilbert Lothian was killing himself with absinthe and brandy in Paris. Some one had seen him in Maxim's or some such place, a dreadful sight. This was three or four months ago, so, if it's true, the poor fellow must be dead by now." "Requiescat," Julia Daly said reverently. "But I should have liked to have known that his dear wife's prayers in Heaven had saved him here." Morton Sims did not answer and there was a silence between them for a minute or two. The doctor was remembering a dreadful scene in the North London Prison. . . . "If Gilbert Lothian still lived he must look like that awful figure in the condemned cell had looked--like his insane half-brother, the cunning murderer--" Morton Sims shuddered and his eyes became fixed in thought. He had told no living soul of what he had learned that night. He never would tell any one. But it all came back to him with extreme vividness as he gazed into the fire. Some memory-cell in his brain, long dormant and inactive, was now secreting thought with great rapidity, and, with these dark memories--it was as though some curtain had suddenly been withdrawn from a window unveiling the sombre picture of a storm--something new and more horrible still started into his mind. It passed through and vanished in a flash. His will-power beat it down and strangled it almost ere it was born. But it left his face pale and his throat rather dry. It was now twenty minutes to three, as the square marble clock upon the mantel showed, and immediately, before Julia Daly and Morton Sims spoke again, two people came into the room. Both were clergymen.