Mr. Flexen had been told that Lady Loudwater was pretty, but he had not been prepared to find her as charming a creature as Olivia. He made up his mind at once to do the best he could to save her from the trouble that the gossip about her and Colonel Grey would surely bring upon her--if always he were satisfied that neither of them had a hand in the crime. Looking at Olivia, nothing seemed more unlikely than that she should be in any way connected with it. But he preserved an open mind. As such reasons go, she was not without reasons, substantial reasons, for getting rid of her husband, and she appeared to him to be a creature of sufficiently delicate sensibilities to feel that husband's brutality more than most women. At the same time he found it hard to conceive of her using that fatal knife herself. Yet the knife is most frequently the womanly weapon. For her part, Olivia liked his face; but she had an uneasy feeling that he would go further than most men in solving any problem with which he set his mind to grapple. They greeted one another; he sat down in a chair facing the light, though he would have preferred that Olivia should have faced it, and expressed his concern at the trouble which had befallen her. Then he said: "I came to see you, Lady Loudwater, in the hope that you might be able to throw some light on this deplorable event." "I don't think I can," said Olivia gently. "But of course, if I can do anything to help you find out about it I shall be very pleased to try." She looked at him with steady, candid eyes that deepened his feeling that she had had no hand in the crime. "And, of course, I'll make it as little distressing for you as I can," he said. "Do you know whether your husband had anything worrying him--any serious trouble of any kind which would make him likely to commit suicide?" "Suicide? Egbert?" cried Olivia, in a tone of such astonishment that, as far as Mr. Flexen was concerned, the hypothesis of suicide received its death-blow. "No. I don't know of anything which would have made him commit suicide." "Of course he had no money troubles; but were there any domestic troubles which might have unhinged his mind to that extent?" said Mr. Flexen. He wished to be able to deal with the hypothesis of suicide, should it be put forward. Olivia did not answer immediately. She was thinking hard. The possibility that her husband had committed suicide, or that any one could suppose that he had committed suicide, had never entered her head. She perceived, however, that it was a supposition worth encouraging. At the same time, she must not seem eager to encourage it. "But they told me that he'd been murdered," she said. "We cannot exclude any possibility from a matter like this, and the possibility of suicide must be taken into account," said Mr. Flexen quickly. "You don't know of any domestic trouble which might have induced Lord Loudwater to make an end of himself?"