Katherine Massarene was coming down the staircase under the smiling gaze of Clodion’s falconer, dressed for the evening and about to dine out, when she heard the shot, muffled as it was by the sounds of the traffic; in another moment she heard a great outcry and understood that something unusual must have taken place; she descended the stairs more quickly, and was crossing the hall when the inner and outer doors were thrown open, and the servants within hurried up to her. “Don’t go, madam! Don’t look!” “What has happened?” she said to them. “An accident? To whom? Tell me at once.” “Mr. Massarene’s murdered, madam,” said a young footman, who had hated his employer and relished the telling of the tale. “Don’t look, madam; they’re bringing him in.” She put them aside and went to the open doors. There she met the body of her father, which was carried across the threshold by four men, his arms hanging down, his head leaning toward one shoulder; behind, in the bright electric light, were curious lookers-on, thrust back by constables. And above, on the head of the staircase, the falconer of Clodion looked down and smiled at the vanity of human ambitions. Throughout fashionable London people were dressing for dinner, or were sitting at dinner-tables, or were driving to dinner-parties, when the strange rumor ran through the streets and spread from mouth to mouth, and was whispered in ghostly speed through the telephonic tubes of club-houses, that William Massarene had been shot as he had alighted from his carriage at the gate of Harrenden House. “There _is_ a God above us!” said Lord Greatrex to his nephew. To him it was an immense relief; it was as though an octopus had loosed its tentacles. But as the news ran through the town, and was received at first with incredulity and then with consternation, a keen anxiety succeeded to astonishment in the breasts of many--so many of these great people owed him money! He was assassinated at eight of the clock. By ten in the evening newspapers were issued with the startling intelligence printed in large type. The journals sold by millions; people snatched them from each other’s hands and read them in the streets, in the cabs and carriages, under the noses of the horses, in the lobby and on the terrace of St. Stephen’s. He had what answers in modern cities to the Triumph of the Romans. The town talked solely of his end. That evening the Duchess of Otterbourne was dining _en intime_ with a familiar friend at a house in Cadogan Square. They were all congenial and pleasant acquaintances at the little banquet, and after it they sat down to play poker, a game which makes up in excitement what it lacks in intellectuality.