That his wife was tricky and false, that the means she had used to cajole or overawe the society she was determined to conquer bore no necessary relation to the truth, he knew; but knowing her also to be clever and cold-hearted, he had not feared that she would so transgress any social law as to make her small or large meannesses known. But the most surprising thing in his wife's career since he left her was that she had not dropped the medium, Beardsley, as soon as his health and popularity were lost. She had been wont to drop all her instruments as soon as their use was over, and most of them had more attractions than he. The man had been poor, plebeian, and sickly; and Durgan, who had never suspected love as the cause of the odd relationship, had now some cause to suppose it rooted in the unspeakable shame of the worst of crimes. In what possible way this had come about he could not even begin to imagine, but he continued to consider his maturing suspicion in growing consternation. If Miss Claxton had not told him the truth, she was a more finished actress than the world had yet seen. If what she said of his wife were true, the mulatto's words were corroborated--his wife was nearly connected with this awful crime. In Durgan's mind the telegraphic address--evidently suggestive to Miss Claxton--had at last become significant. "Beard" suggested Beardsley; "84" was the date of the Claxton murder; "B" might possibly stand for Beardsley, and "D" for his wife. Then the help promised evidently involved his wife's purse. Beardsley had nothing. If this Beardsley was guilty, he must be a most extraordinary man. It was clear that if it was he whom Hermione Claxton was shielding, she was as much determined to keep his secret to-day as at first. She could not speak of him save in tones of sorrow and tenderness. For him, too, the wife whom Durgan knew to be cold and ambitious had apparently ventured all. The extraordinary nature of a man who could on short acquaintance so deeply involve two such different women, gave Durgan so much room for astonished thought that some other things Miss Claxton had said for the time escaped his memory. His strongest impulse after the last interview was to take Miss Claxton at her word and make no further move in the matter--at least, not now and on her account. Ultimately he must find out if his wife was in any plot to conceal a criminal, and if so, put a stop to her connivance. At present he had certainly no desire to make such action on his wife's part public, or break Bertha's heart by filling the air with a public scandal in which her sister's name would be linked with a lover who was a common charlatan and brutal criminal. If for this man's sake Hermione had left her father's death unavenged and ruined her sister's life, Bertha's wrath and sorrow might well be a thing to dread, and such knowledge a disaster that might well crush her. The mulatto might work to bring truth to light; he must work alone.