“Day or night I always have one close at hand, and I'm quite a fair shot.” “In the midst of life we are in death,” cackled the Major, who had not shown himself for several days. Mrs. Erskine looked at him with one of her frosty smiles, but said nothing. It suddenly struck Christine that here might be the reason why Mrs. Erskine kept the Clarks and the Major with her. They were even in the habit, she learnt, of sharing the summer cottage together, yet Christine did not think that Mrs. Erskine cared any more for them in her heart than she did for herself—Christine—whom yet she had asked to extend her visit for at least another fortnight. Were they all not so much friends as a bodyguard? If so, from what danger were they intended to shield their hostess? She puzzled over the matter greatly. It seemed to her the one point of interest she had unearthed. As for Pointer, he wrote no comment, only that she was to watch every detail closely that came under her notice. True, she remembered Robert saying that his mother was timid, a timidity which he himself had inherited, just as he had her one uneven eyebrow, and also a little mannerism of the wrists which Christine never saw without remembering him with a pang. Poor Rob, lying, after little but struggle and failure, in his family vault! If the living man and his danger meant more to her than the dead, not for that reason did she forget Robert Erskine's murder. Chapter VIII Christine had not accepted Mrs. Erskine's invitation to stay for another fortnight, but decided that another week at the villa would be the utmost she could afford to waste in futile efforts to learn some clue in a past to which no one referred. She was glad of her caution when one morning towards the close of her stay she found a letter for her at the shop where she had all her correspondence delivered. It was from Mr. Meukes. She tore it open with a beating heart, and read: “Dear Miss West,