It was strange to contrast the way in which the two women took their similar bereavements. Margery represented the best type of normal American womanhood; Ellen Butler the neurasthenic; she demanded everything by her very helplessness and timidity. She was a constant drain on Edith's ready sympathy. That night, while I closed the house--Fred had not come in--I advised her to let Mrs. Butler go back to her sanatorium. At twelve-thirty I was still down-stairs; Fred was out, and I waited for him, being curious to know the verdict on the play. The bell rang a few minutes before one, and I went to the door; some one in the vestibule was tapping the floor impatiently with his foot. When I opened the door, I was surprised to find that the late visitor was Wardrop. He came in quietly, and I had a chance to see him well, under the hall light; the change three days had made was shocking. His eyes were sunk deep in his head, his reddened lids and twitching mouth told of little sleep, of nerves ready to snap. He was untidy, too, and a three days' beard hardly improved him. "I'm glad it's you," he said, by way of greeting. "I was afraid you'd have gone to bed." "It's the top of the evening yet," I replied perfunctorily, as I led the way into the library. Once inside, Wardrop closed the door and looked around him like an animal at bay. "I came here," he said nervously, looking at the windows, "because I had an idea you'd keep your head. Mine's gone; I'm either crazy, or I'm on my way there." "Sit down, man," I pushed a chair to him. "You don't look as if you have been in bed for a couple of nights." He went to each of the windows and examined the closed shutters before he answered me. "I haven't. You wouldn't go to bed either, if you thought you would never wake up." "Nonsense." "Well, it's true enough. Knox, there are people following me wherever I go; they eat where I eat; if I doze in my chair they come into my dreams!" He stopped there, then he laughed a little wildly. "That last isn't sane, but it's true. There's a man across the street now, eating an apple under a lamppost." "Suppose you _are_ under surveillance," I said. "It's annoying to have a detective following you around, but it's hardly serious. The police say now that Mr. Fleming killed himself; that was your own contention." He leaned forward in his chair and, resting his hands on his knees, gazed at me somberly. "Suppose I say he didn't kill himself?" slowly. "Suppose I say he was murdered? Suppose--good God--suppose I killed him myself?" I drew back in stupefaction, but he hurried on. "For the last two days I've been wondering--if I did it! He hadn't any weapon; I had one, his. I hated him that day; I had tried to save him, and couldn't. My God, Knox, I might have gone off my head and done it--and not remember it. There have been cases like that."