"What will your people say when the whole business comes out?" he grumbled. "Dash it, Meg, I must speak plainly! It's no joke, you know, your coming here and being alone in the house with some fellow whom you never heard of before in your life." Her face paled, and her brown eyes had a glint of fire in them; but with a splendid effort, she managed again to frame words other than those eager to burst forth. "You miss the real problem that calls for solution," she said tremulously. "The consequences of my actions, no matter how foolish they may have been, count for nothing in comparison with the tragedy with which my father's name is bound up. Oh, Percy, don't you see what people must think? A man committed suicide in this house, and every one believed it was my father. Yet you yourself, less than an hour ago, brought me a letter written by my father yesterday! Suppose I leave Elmdale this instant--suppose, which is impossible, that the present excitement dies down--how can I go through life with such a ghastly secret weighing me down? It would drive me crazy!" Armathwaite's firm tread was audible as he crossed the hall. "Anyhow, take my tip, and don't blurt out everything you know the minute you're asked," muttered her counselor, and the door opened. Armathwaite drew a chair to the window and unfolded a frayed newspaper, laying another on his knees. To all appearance, he had noted neither the sullen discontent in one face nor the white anguish in the other. "This is a copy of the _Nuttonby Gazette_, dated June 22nd, two years ago," he said. "It contains what appears to be a verbatim report of the opening day's inquest, which seems to have created a rare stir, judging by the scare heads and space allotted to it. Will it distress you, Miss Ogilvey, if I go through it from beginning to end?" "Yes, it will distress me very greatly, but I don't see how I can avoid hearing it. If one visits the dentist there is no use in pretending that having a tooth drawn doesn't hurt. Please read every word." He obeyed without further preamble. It was a disagreeable task, but he did not flinch from it, though well aware that the gruesome details would shock one of his hearers inexpressibly. Divested of the loud-sounding phrases with which a country reporter loves to clothe any incident of a sensational character, the newspaper added nothing to the facts already related by Betty Jackson and Police-constable Leadbitter, except a letter written and signed by the deceased man, in which he declared he had taken his own life because he was suffering from an incurable disease. It was only when the succeeding issue of the _Nuttonby Gazette_ was scanned, with its report of the adjourned inquest, that new light was vouchsafed. The coroner was a Mr. Hill, a local solicitor; a Dr. Scaife, from Bellerby, who had conducted a post-mortem examination, had excited Mr. Hill's ire by his excessive caution in describing the cause of death.