Inez thought for a minute. She wasn’t sure that she quite liked what she saw of her visitor, but obviously he could find out far more for her than she could herself. Anyhow, she couldn’t very well do any harm by talking to him. “I haven’t got anything very definite in my mind,” she replied. “But it seems to me so odd that that man who knocked into father—who must, quite accidentally of course, have been the cause of his death—shouldn’t have shown any sign—written to me, or something.” Sir Leward waited for a moment or two to see if there was more to come. It was a curiously lame explanation; he felt that there should be more in it than that—but evidently there was not. “Don’t you think, perhaps, that you’re rather exaggerating the man’s responsibility?” he suggested. “I do remember something about Sir Garth having been jogged by somebody a little time before he fell. But the doctor—whoever he was—can’t have thought much of it; or at any rate, he was evidently expecting your father’s death at any time, otherwise he would hardly have given a death certificate without an inquest.” “Oh yes, of course he expected it,” said Inez, with a touch of impatience. “At least, he says so now. I knew nothing about it—about his being seriously ill—till about a fortnight before, and then I didn’t know for some time that it was an aneurism—we were told it was heart disease. It’s all come so very suddenly—I feel somehow that something’s wrong.” With most women Sir Leward would at this point have said something soothing and platitudinous, taken a solicitous farewell, and put the matter out of his mind. The whole thing seemed to him so simple—a storm in a tea-cup. But Inez attracted him; he liked her pale beauty, her calm but decided manner—he liked particularly the peculiar droop at the corners of her mouth when she smiled. It would be easy to see more of her. “I expect the chap just hasn’t noticed about your father. Those people live curiously localized lives—his own office stool and his circle in Balham. They often are quite unaware of what’s going on in the world outside that. Probably he’ll see this advertisement, though—or someone’ll talk about it in front of him. Then he’s sure to turn up or write. Will you let me know? I might be able to help.” Marradine rose to go—he knew the importance of brevity in any kind of visit—it enhanced the value, tantalized the imagination. “By the way,” he asked, as he shook hands. “Who was the young fellow I so unkindly drove away? Not your brother, of course?” “Mr. Mangane? He’s father’s secretary—was, I mean. There’s a good deal to clear up—he’ll be going soon, of course.” “Been here long?” “A month or so, I think.” Sir Leward opened his mouth to ask another question, but thought better of it and went away, leaving Inez, as he had intended, still wondering about him.