After considerable thought Paul determined to seek out and question Lovel. That young man, on the evidence of Miss Clyde and Brent, had been with Milly almost at the hour of the murder. This was the more probable as, terrified lest he should be accused, Lovel had induced Gran Jimboy to tell a lie on his behalf. Mexton considered himself absolved from the promise he had made to Herne, since Catinka's statement had implicated the squire in the crime. He therefore arranged in his own mind to force a confession from Lovel, and threaten him with arrest should he prove obdurate. Paul knew very well that if he told all he knew to Drek there would not be much difficulty in having Lovel arrested on suspicion. The very fact of the lying alibi--which could be exposed by Brent and Miss Clyde--would be sufficient to get him into trouble since, if he were innocent, there would have been no need for him to resort to such extreme measures for his safety. On considering all that he had been told by various people, Paul concluded that either Lovel or Herne was the guilty person, but which one of the two had shot the hapless girl it was hard to say. Only the discovery of new evidence could confirm the guilt of the one and the innocence of the other. And it was with the discovery of such evidence that Paul charged himself. From thoughts of the crime Mexton drifted into considering his disillusion with regard to the Polish violinist. At one time he had loved her for her brilliant beauty, and had thought her kind-hearted and sympathetic. But the conversation he had taken part in; the shameless way in which she confessed to blackmailing Herne; and her absolute disregard of all honour, and even common honesty, showed him what sort of woman she was. If Herne were a religious fanatic, Catinka was frenzied on the point of patriotism; and for her mission she was willing to sacrifice all who stood in the way of its fulfilment. Paul quite believed that she had not killed Milly; but, short of murder, he fancied that she was capable of all other crimes in order to accomplish her dreams of a free Poland. "How could I have loved such a woman?" groaned Paul. "But then it was an ideal I loved, not the kind of viperish clay Catinka has proved herself to be. I dreamt of a goddess, and find a hard woman of the world. Whatever love I may have felt for her has vanished; and I am now much more attracted by the plain good sense and kindly heart of Iris than by the beauty of that impossible Pole. And, after all," added Mexton, trying to comfort himself, "even if Catinka had proved the reality of my dream, she would never have surrendered her great schemes to marry me. But Iris!--ah, if I could only induce her to love me, then, indeed, in a union with her might I hope for happiness?"