The situation was becoming more complicated. Since the conclusion of the inquest I had seen nothing of the widow. She had stayed several days with Ethelwynn at the Hennikers', then had visited her aunt near Bath. That was all I knew of her movements, for, truth to tell, I held her in some contempt for her giddy pleasure-seeking during her husband's illness. Surely a woman who had a single spark of affection for the man she had married could not go out each night to theatres and supper parties, leaving him to the care of his man and a nurse. That one fact alone proved that her professions of love had been hollow and false. While the twilight fell I sat in that long, sombre old room that breathed an air of a century past, chatting with old Mrs. Mivart, and learning from her full particulars of Mary's eccentricities. My hostess told me of the proving of the will, which left the Devonshire estate to her daughter, and of the slow action of the executors. The young widow's actions, as described to me, were certainly strange, and made me strongly suspect that she was not quite responsible for them. That Mary's remorse was overwhelming was plain; and that fact aroused within my mind a very strong suspicion of a circumstance I had not before contemplated, namely, that during the life of her husband there had been a younger male attraction. The acuteness of her grief seemed proof of this. And yet, if argued logically, the existence of a secret lover should cause her to congratulate herself upon her liberty. The whole situation was an absolute enigma. CHAPTER XVI. REVEALS AN ASTOUNDING FACT. Dinner was announced, and I took Mrs. Mivart into the room on the opposite side of the big old-fashioned hall, a long, low-ceilinged apartment the size of the drawing-room, and hung with some fine old family portraits and miniatures. Old Squire Mivart had been an enthusiastic collector of antique china, and the specimens of old Montelupo and Urbino hanging upon the walls were remarkable as being the finest in any private collection in this country. Many were the visits he had made to Italy to acquire those queer-looking old mediaeval plates, with their crude colouring and rude, inartistic drawings, and certainly he was an acknowledged expert in antique porcelain. The big red-shaded lamp in the centre of the table shed a soft light upon the snowy cloth, the flowers and the glittering silver; and as my hostess took her seat she sighed slightly, and for the first time asked of Ethelwynn. "I haven't seen her for a week," I was compelled to admit. "Patients have been so numerous that I haven't had time to go out to see her, except at hours when calling at a friend's house was out of the question." "Do you like the Hennikers?" her mother inquired, raising her eyes inquiringly to mine. "Yes, I've found them very agreeable and pleasant."