"I think you are right," he said, with deliberation; "it is best that you should learn the truth in that way. When you have read those papers come and see me about them." "One moment, sir! Who killed my father?" "I cannot say! Your mother was suspected and proved innocent. A friend of your father was also suspected and----" "And proved innocent?" "No! He was never arrested--he was never tried. He vanished on the night of the murder and has not been heard of since. Now, I can tell you no more. Go and read the papers, Claude." Larcher took up his hat and hurried toward the door in a mechanical manner. There he paused. "Does Mrs. Bezel know the truth?" Hilliston, arranging the papers on the table, looked up with a face which had unexpectedly grown gray and old. "Yes!" he said quickly. "I think Mrs. Bezel knows the 'truth.'" CHAPTER IV. WHAT OCCURRED AT HORRISTON. AFTER that fatal interview Claude went neither to the house at Kensington Gore nor to the chambers of his friend Tait. With the papers given to him by Hilliston in his pocket, he repaired to a quiet hotel in Jermyn Street, where he was well-known, and there secured a bedroom for the night. A wire speedily brought his luggage from the railway station, and thus being settled for the moment, he proceeded to acquaint himself with the tragedy of his parents' lives. It was some time before he could make up his mind to read the papers, and, dreading the disagreeable relation, he put off the perusal till such time as he retired to bed. A note dispatched to the Club intimated to Tait that the second seat at the Curtain Theater would be unoccupied, and then Claude tried to rid himself of distracting thoughts by a rapid walk in the Park. So do men dally with the inevitable, and vainly attempt to stay the march of Fate. Dinner was a mere farce with the young man, for he could neither eat nor drink, and afterward he dawdled about the smoke room, putting off the reading of the papers as long as he could. A superstitious feeling of coming evil withheld him from immediately learning the truth; and it was not until the clock struck ten that he summoned up sufficient courage to repair to his bedroom. With the papers spread out on a small table, he sat down at half-past ten, reading by the light of a single candle. A second and a third were needed before he arose from his chair, and the gray dawn was glimmering through the window blinds as he laid down the last sheet. Then his face was as gray as the light spreading over street and house, for he knew that his dead father had been foully murdered, and that his dead mother had been morally, if not legally, guilty of the crime. The tragedy--a strange mixture of the sordid and the romantic--took place at Horriston, in Kent, in the year 1866, and the following are the main facts, as exhibited by the provincial press: