"Philip Ashley was acquitted, but there are not many people who followed that case closely who believed him altogether innocent at the time. What Lady Peet-Jackson thought about it no one knows. It was for her sake that the unfortunate man threw up the chances of a fortune, and when it came within his grasp it still seemed destined to evade him to the end. In losing the woman for whom he had been prepared to make so many sacrifices, poor Philip lost the fortune a second time, because, as he was not married within the prescribed time-limit, it was Charles who inherited under the terms of the original will. But I think you will agree with me that any sensitive man is well out of a union with a hard and mercenary woman. "And now there has been another revolution in the wheel of Fate. Charles Ashley died the other day in a nursing home of heart failure, following an operation. He died intestate, and his brother is his sole heir. Funny, isn't it, that Philip Ashley should get his father's fortune in the end? But Fate does have a way sometimes of dealing out compensations, after she has knocked a man about beyond his deserts. Philip Ashley is a rich man now, and there is a rumour, I am told, current in the society papers, that Lady Francis Firmour has filed a petition for divorce, and that the proceedings will be undefended. But can you imagine any man marrying such a woman after all that she made him suffer?" Then, as the funny creature paused and appeared entirely engrossed in the fashioning of complicated knots in his beloved bit of string, I felt that it was my turn to keep the ball rolling. "Then you, for one," I said, "are quite convinced that Philip Ashley did not know that his father intended to make a new will, and did not try to murder him?" "Aren't you?" he retorted. "Well," I rejoined, somewhat lamely, "some one did assault the old miser, didn't they? If it was not Philip Ashley then it must have been just an ordinary burglar, who thought that the old man had some money hidden away under his mattress." "Can't you theorise more intelligently than that?" the tiresome creature asked in his very rude and cynical manner. I would gladly have slapped his face, only--I did want to know. "Your own theory," I retorted, choosing to ignore his impertinence, "seek him first whom the crime benefits." "Well, and whom did that particular crime benefit the most?" "Philip Ashley, of course," I replied, "but you said yourself----" "Philip Ashley did not benefit by the crime," the old scarecrow broke in, with a dry cackle. "No, no, but for the fact that a merciful Providence removed Charles Ashley so very unexpectedly out of this wicked world, Philip would still be living on a few hundreds a year, most of which he would owe to the munificence of his brother." "That," I argued, "was only because that Peet-Jackson woman threw him over, otherwise----"