"Would lady like Mosie go and see? Then Mosie come back and tell lady everything," said the black boy, and in the hope of being alone Helena allowed him to go. But hardly had the boy gone when a timid knock came to her door and the Army surgeon entered the room. The man’s thin lips were twitching, and he was clearly ill at ease. "Excuse me," he said, "but hearing you were soon to leave for home ... I thought it only fair to myself ... In fact, I have come to make an explanation." "What is it?" asked Helena, without a trace of interest in her tone. The surgeon gnawed the ends of his moustache for an instant, and then, looking uneasily at Helena, he said— "When you come to turn things over in your mind you may perhaps think I was to blame in keeping your dear father’s secret. His condition, however, was not so serious but that under ordinary circumstances ... I say _ordinary_ circumstances ... he might have lived five years, ten years, even fifteen. The truth is, though——" "Well?" "I want to prove the sincerity of my friendship, Miss Graves. I am sure you prefer that I should speak plainly." "The truth is—what!" asked Helena, who was now listening with strained attention. "That ... that your dear father’s death ... I am now fully convinced of it ... was due—partly due at all events ... to circumstances that ... that were _not_ ordinary." Helena’s pale face turned white, but she made no answer, and after a moment the surgeon said— "It would have been cruel to tell you this last night immediately after the shock of your bereavement but ... but now that you are going away ... Besides, I spoke to Lord Nuneham. I mentioned my surmises. But you know what he is ... a great man, undoubtedly a great man, but incapable of taking counsel. Always has been, always will be, we all of us find it so." Helena, seized with an indefinable fear, was speechless, but the surgeon’s blundering tongue went on— "’Better not speak of it,’ said Lord Nuneham. ’Drop it! Don’t let us weaken our case against the man and rouse popular fury by an accusation we cannot possibly bring home. Wait! We’ll get hold of him to better purpose by-and-by.’" Helena’s heart was beating violently, but she only said, with laboured breathing— "Can’t we dispense with all this? You have come to tell me that my father did not die from natural causes—isn’t that it?" "Yes ... that is to say ... pardon me ... we are alone?" Helena assented impatiently. "Then, to tell you the truth ... I am satisfied that violence ... as a contributing cause, at all events ... I looked at him again this morning, when ... at the last moment, in fact ... and the marks were even plainer than before." "Marks?" "Marks of a man’s hand about the throat." "A man’s hand?" said Helena, with her lips rather than with her voice. "I thought at first it might have been the General’s own hand, but there was one peculiarity which forbade that inference." "Tell me."