on Monday he lay hidden in the lumber-room on the top floor, which is rarely entered from one year's end to another, I supplying him with food meanwhile. On Monday morning he made his appearance at his lodgings, and, later on, at the office, no one suspecting otherwise than that he had just got back from his holidays." Robert Melray had not interrupted her by a word. He sat for a space after she had done with drawn brows and introverted eyes which saw nothing of what was before them. At length he roused himself with a deep sigh. "That your narrative throws a wholly unexpected light on a mystery which has long perplexed both me and others cannot be denied, he said, and I am obliged to you for the frankness which has at length prompted the telling of it. Still, I altogether fail to reconcile what you have just told me with the details of certain circumstances as set down in your written statement of a fortnight ago." A short derisive laugh broke from Denia. "My good sir," she said, "seeing that I have just told you the true history of the events of the 18th of September as far as they concern me individually, but one inference can be drawn by you with regard to my so-called statement, namely, that from beginning to end it was a simple tissue of romance." Mr. Melray stared at her in wide-eyed amazement. "But surely," he gasped, "you don't mean to say that all which was there stated with reference to Evan Wildash and yourself was----" "A sheer piece of rigmarole--that and nothing more. I found it impossible to resist the temptation Miss Sudlow was good enough to put in my way. Besides, I had a suspicion, which may or may not have been baseless, that she had been brought to Loudwater House purposely to watch me and spy upon my actions, so that when she gave me a certain story to read, which undoubtedly seemed to embody in rather a startling way a number of details in connection with my husband's death, I decided to accept it as a true narrative, and it was on that assumption that I wrote out my statement. I need hardly add that my object in acting thus was to divert suspicion from the real quarter, and, if it were possible thereby to do so, to bring to an end, once and for ever, the inquiry into the causes of my husband's death." "It is most extraordinary!" ejaculated Robert Melray. "But do you mean to imply that Evan Wildash never came back from Africa?" "Never, to my knowledge. He was reported to have died there, and, for anything known by me to the contrary the report was true." "Then, as regards the man who was killed in the railway accident?" "I know no more about him than about the man in the moon." Robert Melray sat back in his chair like a man bereft of speech. CHAPTER XXI. THE TRUTH AT LAST. Some minutes later Robert Melray opened the door which led to the outer office, and said to his head clerk, "Mr. Cray, will you be good enough to ask Mr. Dyson to step this way?"