“I’ll go further, then. If I say that even if you killed Hoode and tell me so, I won’t move in any way except to help you, will—you—tell—me—all—about—it?” Those eyes blazed at him. “Do you dare to suggest that I——” “Oh, woman, Illogicality should be thy name,” Anthony groaned. “I was merely endeavouring, madam, to show how safe you’d be in telling me all that you know. Listen. I’m in this business privately. I oblige a friend. If I don’t like my own conclusions, I shall say nothing about them. I seek neither Fame nor Honorarium. I have, thank God, more money than is good for me.” He was silent for a moment, and then added: “Now, suppose you tell me all about it.” She half rose, then sank back into her chair. Her eyes were full on his. For a moment that seemed an hour he lost consciousness of all else. He saw nothing, felt nothing, but those dark twin pools and the little golden lights that danced deep down in the darkness. “I believe you,” she said at last. “I _will_ tell you”—she laughed a little—“all about it.” Anthony bowed. “May I sit?” he asked. “Oh! Please, please forgive me!” She sprang to her feet. “You look _so_ tired—and I’ve kept you standing all this time. And while I’ve been so melodramatic, too. Is there anything you——” “Only your story.” Anthony had discovered a need to keep a hold upon himself. Contrition had made her, impossibly, yet more beautiful. He pulled up a chair and sat facing her. The white hands twisted in her lap. She began: “I—I hardly know where to begin. It’s all so—it doesn’t seem real, only it’s too dreadful to be anything else——” “Why did you go to Abbotshall last night? And why, in Heaven’s name, since you did go there, did you choose to swim?” Anthony conceived that questions would help. “There wasn’t time to do anything else,” she said, seeming to gather confidence. She went on, the words tumbling over each other: “We’d been out all day—Dora and I and some friends. I—when we got back——Dora and I—there was only just time to change for dinner. As I came in I saw some letters in the hall, and remembered I’d not read them in the morning—we’d been in such a hurry to start. Then I went and forgot them again till after dinner. “It wasn’t till after half-past ten that I thought of them. And then, when—when I read the one from Jimmy, I—I—oh, God!—” She covered her face with her hands. “Who,” said Anthony sharply, “is Jimmy?” With an effort so great that it hurt him to watch, she recovered. The hands dropped to her lap again. He saw the long fingers twist about each other. “Jimmy,” she said, “is my brother. I’m most awfully fond of him, you know. He _is_ such a darling! Only—only he’s not been quite the same since he got back from Germany. He—he’s ill—and he’s—he’s been d-drinking—and—he was a prisoner there for three years! When they got him he was wounded in the head and they never even—the beasts! The beasts! Oh, Jim, darling——” “That letter, madam,” Anthony was firm.