Throughout the dark, breathless hours sleep came not to my eyes, so full was my mind of the tragic discovery. As I lay awake, hour after hour, listening to the chiming bells, and watching the dawn struggling in between the curtains, I reflected deeply upon the strange events of that evening, and the more I pondered, the more mysterious appeared the circumstances. Foremost in my mind was the strange, inviolable secret that I felt convinced existed between Ella and Beck. Although strenuously denied by her, she had nevertheless admitted her unworthiness of my love. Yet I adored her. No woman had ever stirred my soul as she had; no woman had so completely held me under her spell. I remembered how she had seemed a trifle wan and distressed; yet that look enhanced rather than detracted from her refined beauty. Her steady refusal to enlighten me regarding the subject of her earnest conversation with Beck when I had watched them in the garden, and the significant glances she had exchanged with him across the dinner-table, had aroused within me a suspicion that, notwithstanding her declaration, she loved Beck. Again, the tone of her letter was, I now saw distinctly, such as a woman would write if she desired to break off her engagement. Yet had I not a right to demand full explanation of her extraordinary statement? had I not a right to seek the truth of her relations with this loud-spoken parvenu? Nevertheless, as I pondered, I felt half inclined to believe that my estimate of Beck was a distorted one, for his regret at the death of Dudley, and his sympathy for Mrs Laing were, I felt assured, deep, heartfelt and genuine. When at last I carefully analysed my feelings towards him, I was bound to admit within myself that jealousy was now the only cause of my bitter antipathy. Again, other incidents increased the mystery. Mrs Laing's dread that Ella should know of Dudley's death was very curious, and her exclamations and inquiries of the doctor regarding his conjecture of poison seemed to point to the fact that she entertained certain suspicions, or was aware of certain facts. But, after fully reviewing the tragic affair in all its phases, I arrived at the conclusion that Dr Allenby did not anticipate for one moment finding poison at the _post-mortem_. On the contrary, from the words he had let drop, he undoubtedly believed death due to heart-disease. I could not, however, rid myself of a vague suspicion that Ella's mother feared analysis of the remains of the dinner, and that the presence of the police unnerved her, as it invariably does those who are guilty.