“Your second effort is more successful, superintendent,” he said dryly. “Miss Melhuish did urge me to obtain her freedom. It was, she thought, only a matter of money with Mr. Ingerman, and she would be given material for a divorce.” “Ah,” murmured Fowler again, as though the discreditable implication fitted in exactly with the life history of a noted scoundrel in a written _dossier_ then lying in his office. “You objected, may I suggest, to that somewhat doubtful means of settling a difficulty?” “Something of the kind.” Assuredly, Grant did not feel disposed to lay bare his secret feelings before this persuasive superintendent and an absurdly conceited village constable. Love, to him, was an ideal, a blend of mortal passion and immortal fire. But the flame kindled on that secret altar had scorched and seared his soul in a wholly unforeseen way. The discovery that Adelaide Melhuish was another man’s wife had stunned him. It was not until the fire of sacrifice had died into parched ashes that its earlier banality became clear. He realized then that he had given his love to a phantom. By one of nature’s miracles a vain and selfish creature was gifted in the artistic portrayal of the finer emotions. He had worshiped the actress, the mimic, not the woman herself. At any rate, that was how he read the repellent notion that he should bargain with any man for the sale of a wife. “You might be a trifle more explicit, Mr. Grant,” said the superintendent, almost reproachfully. “In what direction? Surely a three-years-old love affair can have little practical bearing on Miss Melhuish’s death?” “What, then, may I ask, could bear on it more forcibly? The lady admittedly visits you, late at night, and is found dead in a river bordering the grounds of your house next morning, all the conditions pointing directly to murder. Moreover—it is no secret, as the truth must come out at the inquest—she had passed a good deal of her time while in Steynholme, unknown to you, in making inquiries concerning you, your habits, your surroundings, your friends. Surely, Mr. Grant, you must see that the history of your relations with this lady, though, if I may use the phrase, perfectly innocent, may possibly supply that which is at present lacking—a clew, shall I term it, to the motive which inspired the man, or woman, who killed her?” P. C. Robinson was all an eye and an ear for this verbal fencing-match. It was not that he admired his superior’s skill, because such finesse was wholly beyond him, but his suspicious brain was storing up Grant’s admissions “to be used in evidence” against him subsequently. His own brief record of the conversation would have been:—“The prisoner, after being duly cautioned, said he kept company with the deceased about three years ago, but quarreled with her on hearing that she was a married woman.”