The driver gave a whoop and cracked his whip. Never had the old horse in the fly been driven at such a pace before. CHAPTER XV. THE SECRET OF WYVERN TOWERS. To return to Drelincourt. As has been said, he had the unstoppered vial to his lips, and was about to drain the contents, when the door was thrown open and Roden Marsh rushed into the room. With one sweep of his arm he dashed the bottle from Drelincourt's hand, crying out: "Thank God, I am not too late!" But Drelincourt gazed at him with reproachful eyes. "Why have you thwarted me, Rodd?" he said. "Because you would have made the most frightful mistake of your life; because there is no need of your sacrificing yourself for Gumley; because the real murderer has been discovered!" Rodd got out all this in a breath and then dropped into a chair, panting from the haste with which he had come and the excitement which possessed him. "The real murderer has been discovered!" Drelincourt gasped. "Then I----" "Had nothing whatever to do with it, as Mrs. Jenwyn will tell you. She is here now, waiting impatiently to see you." "But what has she----" "That she will tell you herself. I will bring her at once;" And Rodd started up. But Drelincourt laid a detaining hand on his shoulder. "Wait," he said. "Give me a few moments. I can scarcely realize yet that--that I am not in another world." It was ten minutes later that Mrs. Jenwyn and Drelincourt were left alone. They had shaken hands, and, at her host's request, she had seated herself on a chair opposite his own, on the other side of the hearth. Drelincourt lost no time in coming to the point. "Roden Marsh tells me that you are the bearer of some very remarkable news," he said, "and, in point of fact, that your visit here tonight was on purpose to make it known to me. Is that so, may I ask?" "It was that, and nothing else, which brought me to Fairlawn." "I am given to understand that the information you wish to impart to me is concerned with the death of my first wife." "That is so." "You know already from Roden Marsh that I have all along laid her death at my own door. I had every reason for believing that I had killed her while in a somnambulistic state, but Roden tells me you assert most positively that my belief was utterly baseless." "I do assert it, Mr. Drelincourt." "Such an assertion presupposes a knowledge on your part of the guilty person." Mrs. Jenwyn bowed. "Are you prepared to name the person in question?" "I am." "Yes?" Mr. Drelincourt sat up in his chair. A hectic spot burned in either cheek. His whole frame was a-tingle with excitement. "The person to whom your first wife owed her death was none other than your half sister, Anna Drelincourt." Slowly, clearly, and unhesitatingly fell the words. Mrs. Jenwyn had come purposely to declare the truth, and the more simply she put it the better. "Great Heavens! You don't mean to say that!" "I have told you the simple truth."