“O, I know it!” she said. “I have always known it. Voices and visions used to come to me--they were for ever coming. One was of a little child I bore; but it went, and I knew then that it was not of the dead. Only the dead speak to me. The others are like murmurs behind a wall. I hear them as the dead hear the steps and laughter overhead. He killed him out of love of me--he struck him through my heart and killed my heart. The rest was his to take. He could not gain back what he had killed. His will was strong, but that was beyond it. And he made a passionate wooer, too. But it wanted more than his warmth to melt that dead stone of my heart. The children of his passion--they were born with the chill of it on them, and they too died, one by one.” Not once did her voice rise above that lifeless current of sound. She stood like one speaking in an hypnotic trance, compelled to say the things she said. Now, in a pause, Valombroso spoke again: “Will madama explain what she means by its being too late?” Her eyes came down to him, with the strangest challenge. “Did you know him, and think to take him so easily? Look where you will; you will not find him here.” “We shall avail ourselves very fully of your permission, madam,” said Mr Shapter civilly. “It obviates for us the unpleasant necessity to fall back upon our search warrant. Mr Dalston is gone, then, you say. Will you perhaps acquaint us where?” “He is gone abroad--a long journey. I have a letter from him. You can see it if you like.” She turned and led the way into the house, and we all followed her into a low dark inky-panelled sitting-room. Melancholy green light flowed in here through a wide lozenge-paned window at the back. A round-headed bush was stooped to the glass outside, as if listening with its ear to it. It was an unchancy creepy place, and shudderingly cold. We exchanged some significant glances while the unhappy woman was searching a bureau for the letter. Crazed--that was their common implication; and perhaps by reason of her madness spared much. It was very pitiful. Presently she found what she sought, and brought it to us. Our heads crowded together to read it. It was indisputably his, couched in affectionate terms, and dated from some port in Spain, a week back. It related the writer’s sudden inducement to seize a business chance which had offered, talked of a short absence, and gave some directions for his wife’s abandonment of the farm and withdrawal to a certain address in London, which was mentioned. Valombroso, finishing with it, shrugged his shoulders and handed the sheet on to Jannaway, who put it in his pocket. “It is very well, then. And now, with your permission, madama, we will get to work,” said the Italian.