"Impossible!" he reiterated. "Why? He murdered Janet Smith; of that you will be as convinced within the next few days as I am at this hour. That the three men were in collusion I have not the shadow of doubt. Marston only made love to Janet Smith in order to secure her silence; but in this he failed, and the girl boldly accused him of roguery as soon as she found him out. It would be inconceivable to suppose that being the bright, intelligent girl that she admittedly was, she could remain for ever in ignorance of the defalcations in the books; she must and did tax her lover of irregularities, she must have and indeed did threaten to put the whole thing before the governors. So much for the lovers' quarrel overheard by Mrs. Rumble. "I believe that the fate of the poor girl was decided on then and there by two of the scoundrels; it only remained to consult with their other accomplice as to the best means for carrying their hideous project through. Janet had announced her determination to go to Kurtmoor that self-same evening, the only question was which of those three miscreants would meet her in the darkness and solitude of the Lovers' Walk. But in order at the outset to throw dust in the eyes of the public and the police and not appear to be in any way associated with one another, Marston and Gubbins made pretence of a violent quarrel which Peryer overheard; then Gubbins, in order to make sure that the poor girl would carry out her intention of going over to Kurtmoor that evening, went to her house with the supposed message from Marston, and incidentally secured thereby his own alibi. This made him safe. "Marston in the meanwhile went to arrange matters with Arkwright Jones. His position was, of course, more difficult than that of Gubbins. If there was to be murder--and my belief is that the scoundrels had been resolved on murder for some time before--the first suspicion would inevitably fall on the secretary who had kept the books and who had had the handling of the money. The miscreants had some sort of vague plan in their heads: of this there can be no doubt; they were only procrastinating, hoping against hope that chance would continue to favour them. But now the hour had come, the danger was imminent; within the next four-and-twenty hours Janet Smith, being promised no redress on the part of the President, would place the whole matter before the governors. _Unless she was effectually made to hold her tongue_.