"There is nothing strange about it when it comes to be explained," said witness. "The fact is, when my father worked late at the office he usually slept on a little camp-bed in his dressing-room. This was to avoid disturbing my mother, who, as a rule, retires for the night at any early hour. If my mother woke up in the course of last night, or early this morning, she would naturally conclude that my father had let himself into the house by means of his latch-key, and had gone to bed in the other room." There being no more witnesses to examine, the Coroner announced that the inquiry would be adjourned for a week, so as to allow time for a post-mortem examination to be made, and also to enable the police to follow up their investigations into an affair which, the more it was looked into, the more mysterious it seemed to become. CHAPTER X. AN ANXIOUS WEEK. Edward Hazeldine and Mr. Prestwich retired to a private room in the hotel, while John Brancker walked back to the Bank like a man utterly dazed and confounded. He could not help noticing how the crowd that lingered about the hotel divided and made way for him, nor how they stared at him and broke into eager whisperings the moment he had passed. To his excited fancy it seemed as if everybody shrank from him. How could Strong swear as he had sworn! And yet there seemed the ring of truth in all he said. And those mysterious blood-stains! It was all a terrible mystery at present, but one which a few days at the most would surely unravel. John Brancker paused on the steps outside the Bank, feeling utterly sick at heart. Not again to-day could he set foot inside those walls. The man whom he had respected and looked up to for so many years lay there dead, and he, John Brancker, was actually suspected of---- Great heavens! could it be anything more than a horrible nightmare? He turned and set off homeward at a rapid pace. Awaiting him there were two loving hearts into which no vile breath of suspicion, not even if the evidence against him were an hundredfold stronger than it was, would ever find a moment's harborage. Never had his humble home seemed so sweet and dear to him as that afternoon. It was in no very enviable frame of mind that Ephraim Judd quitted the jury-room and made his way towards the river-bank. He was in no mood for business; he felt the need of being alone. How he despised himself for what he had done! And yet he felt that, in similar circumstances, he should be driven to do the same again. How was it possible for him to tell the truth, when to do so meant ruin to himself? Not one day longer would Mr. Avison retain him in his service if he were to become aware of his practice of prying into other people's affairs, and, in that case, what would become of him and his widowed mother?