"It's more looks than anything else," replied Darrel in his heavy way. "I'm warm enough--quite. How I'll stand town I don't know." "When are you returning?" asked Miss Starth, indifferently. "To-morrow--if you don't want me to stay." "I have no control over your movements, Mr. Darrel." But the coldness of the tone had no effect. "I mean, that there may be something I can do for you. Now that your brother is dead--" "Mr. Jarman is looking after things for me, thank you," said Mildred, stiffly. "The only thing you can do is to find out who killed Walter." Darrel raised his bushy eyebrows. "There's no difficulty about that, Miss Starth. The verdict of the jury--" "Was wrong. I can't believe that this Mr. Lancaster committed so horrible and apparently purposeless a crime." "Have you any reason to believe him innocent?" Mildred, for obvious reasons, did not answer this question directly. "I can't see his motive," she said, looking down pensively. "The evidence of that lady at the inquest--" "I know nothing about any lady," retorted the girl, flushing. Then, to change the conversation and mark her sense of Darrel's bad manners, she asked a question. "Did you know Mr. Lancaster?" Darrel nodded. "I thought I told you," he said. "He was sitting next to me on that night I saw you in the theatre." "The night before the tragedy," said Mildred, shuddering. "What is he like to look at?" "Fair chap, blue eyes, and--" "Wait!" Miss Starth recollected the man who had stared at her. "Do you mean to say that he was the gentleman who sat next to you?" "Yes. I said so. Fair hair, and--" "I know," she broke in hurriedly. "He was looking at me; our eyes met, and he--oh he didn't look like a man who would commit murder." "I shouldn't have thought it of him myself," said Darrel; "but if he didn't, who did? That's the point." "I wish you to find that out if you will." "Certainly. I'll do my best, on conditions." "Conditions!" Mildred stared, and looked annoyed. "Yes," said the Rhodesian, stolidly; "promise to be my wife, and I'll hunt down Lancaster." Mildred gasped. This was the same bargain as she had made with Eustace, so the situation was duplicated. But she more than liked Jarman, and cared very little for Darrel. Moreover, now that she knew the suspected man was the one who had stared at her, and to whose face she had taken a fancy, she was inclined to agree with Eustace that he was innocent. So refined a man could not possibly have committed so brutal a crime. And, finally, she was displeased that Darrel should again broach a subject about which she had asked him to be silent. "I told you before, and I tell you again, Mr. Darrel, that I cannot become your wife," she said, with some heat. "Why not?" asked the man, stolidly. Mildred grew exasperated. "Because I don't love you." "Love may come after marriage." "I prefer it to come before," she declared. "I won't marry you."