He was remembering that it was only a week since he had told Edward in this very spot that his uncle might live for three years. Well, he was dead now. The old man was dead now—out of the way—some one had seen to that. Who? David could still hear Edward Mottisfont’s voice asking, “How long is he likely to live?” and his own answer, “Perhaps three years.” “Come in here,” said Edward Mottisfont. He opened the dining-room door as he spoke, and David followed him into a dark, old-fashioned room, separated from the one behind it by folding-doors. One of the doors stood open about an inch, but there was only one lamp in the room, and neither of the two men paid any attention to such a trifling circumstance. Edward sat down by the table, which was laid for dinner. Even above the white tablecloth his face was noticeably white. All his life this old man had been his bugbear. He had hated him, not with the hot hatred which springs from one great sudden wrong, but with the cold slow abhorrence bred of a thousand trifling oppressions. He had looked forward to his death. For years he had thought to himself, “Well, he can’t live for ever.” But now that the old man was dead, and the yoke lifted from his neck, he felt no relief—no sense of freedom. He felt oddly shocked. David Blake did not sit down. He stood at the opposite side of the table and looked at Edward. From where he stood he could see first the white tablecloth, then Edward’s face, and on the wall behind Edward, a full-length portrait of old Edward Mottisfont at the age of thirty. It was the work of a young man whom Market Harford had looked upon as a very disreputable young man. He had since become so famous that they had affixed a tablet to the front of the house in which he had once lived. The portrait was one of the best he had ever painted, and the eyes, Edward Mottisfont’s black, malicious eyes, looked down from the wall at his nephew, and at David Blake. Neither of the men had spoken since they entered the room, but they were both so busy with their thoughts that neither noticed how silent the other was. At last David spoke. He said in a hard level voice: “Edward, I can’t sign the certificate. There will have to be an inquest.” Edward Mottisfont looked up with a great start. “An inquest?” he said, “an inquest?” One of David’s hands rested on the table. “I can’t sign the certificate,” he repeated. Edward stared at him. “Why not?” he said. “I don’t understand——” “Don’t you?” said David Blake. Edward rumpled up his hair in a distracted fashion. “I don’t understand,” he repeated. “An inquest? Why, you’ve been attending him all these months, and you said he might die at any time. You said it only the other day. I don’t understand——” “Nor do I,” said David curtly. Edward stared again. “What do you mean?”