Mrs. Larcher was still in bed, and, under the doctor's orders, refused to rise therefrom, or to receive her visitors. She protested to Hilliston, who in his turn reported her sayings to the police, that she knew nothing about the matter. She had not seen her husband since he left her on the 23d of June, and no one was more astonished or horror-struck than she at the news of his death. According to her story she had left the ball at three o'clock, and had driven to The Laurels with Jeringham. He had parted from her at the door of the house, and had walked back to Horriston. His reason for not entering, and for not using the carriage to return, was that he did not wish to give color to the scandal as to the relations which existed between them, which Mrs. Larcher vowed and protested were purely platonic. Furthermore, she asserted that her illness was caused by a discovery which she had made on the night of the ball: that Mona Bantry was about to become a mother, and to all appearance she believed that the father of the coming child was none other than her husband. Far from thinking that he had been murdered, she had been waiting for his return in order to upbraid him for his profligacy, and to demand a divorce. Mona Bantry had disappeared immediately after the discovery of her ruin, and Mrs. Larcher professed that she did not know where she was. This story, which was feasible enough, satisfied the police authorities for the moment, and they retired, only to return three days later with a warrant for the arrest of Mrs. Larcher. In the interval a dagger had been found in the grounds of The Laurels, on the banks of the river, and, as it was stained with blood and exactly fitted the wound, it was concluded that with this weapon the crime had been committed. Inquiry resulted in the information being obtained that Mrs. Larcher, in her character of Mary, Queen of Scots, had worn this dagger on the night of the ball. Hence it was evident, so said the police, that she had killed her husband. The theory of the police was that Captain Larcher had returned from London on the night of the ball, and had witnessed the parting of his wife and Jeringham at the door. Filled with jealous rage he had upbraided his wife in the sitting room, the window of which looked out on the cliff overhanging the river. In a moment of fury she had doubtless snatched the dagger from her girdle and stabbed him to the heart, then, terrified at what she had done, had thrown the body out of the window, trusting that the stream would carry it away, and so conceal her crime. This the river had done, for the body had been discovered four miles down, where it had been carried by the current. As to the dagger being in the grounds in place of the room, the police, never at a loss for a theory, suggested that Mrs. Larcher had stolen out of the house, and had thrown the dagger over the bank where it was subsequently discovered.