After the excitement of the evening and her swift walk in the keen air at so late an hour, Claudia felt faint. Nor did the languid atmosphere of the tropical drawing-room tend to restore her. The heat of the large fire, the brilliance of the many lights, the multiplicity of colours, and the odour of flowers mixed with the scent of the burning pastilles, all made her sense reel and her eye grow dim. With a violent effort she cleared her head of vapours, and became as composed as formerly she had been agitated. Lady Wyke was pleased.

"You are worth fighting, Miss Lemby." she said, approvingly.

"Thank you for the compliment," retorted Claudia, sitting bolt upright with a stern white face and steady eyes.

"Oh, it's no compliment," trilled Lady Wyke, like a bird, "it is the truth. If you were a namby-pamby of the weeping kind I should despise you. As it is, I respect you immensely. Few girls of your age would act so sensibly."

"I am acting sensibly, as you call it, because I see no other way in which to act. But although I have yielded for the moment, Lady Wyke, don't think that I have given up all hope of regaining Edwin. That Edwin will be my husband is a foregone conclusion. Aren't you ashamed to get a husband on such terms?"

"Not a bit," said Lady Wyke, coolly. "He doesn't love me now, but he will learn to love me. I suppose he is annoyed at you throwing him over."

"I haven't told him," retorted Claudia, curtly. "He has gone to town."

"Oh!" Lady Wyke started and looked suspiciously at her visitor. "I know that you can implicate Edwin in the murder by showing that letter to Sergeant Purse," said Claudia, steadily. "All the same you know that he is guiltless."

"Do I? Then who is guilty?"

"I can't say."

"Your father?" asked Lady Wyke, impertinently and with meaning.

"No!" Claudia started to her feet. "My father would never stab an old man."

"Oh, I think he would to get money," retorted the hostess, leaning back in her chair and smiling. "He is very much the man who would slay and stab in order to get money. And from all accounts he needs money very badly."

"Yes, I think he does," said Claudia, coolly, "else he would scarcely have thought of marrying you."

The shot told, and Lady Wyke grew angry. "Look here, Miss Lemby, I am scrupulously polite to you, and I expect politeness in return. If you have nothing more to say you had better go."

"Oh! I have ever so much more to say. I will go when it suits me."

"You defy me," cried Lady Wyke.

"I do. I have given in over one thing because I can't help myself. I am not going to give in over the question of staying or going. After we have had an explanation, it is just on the cards that I may rescind my surrender."

"Oh, indeed. Well, Miss Lemby, as it seems we are to have a talk, let me offer you some refreshment. There is wine on yonder table."

"No, thanks."

"Well; then, go on; what have you to say?"

"This. That Edwin is innocent."

"Prove it," said Lady Wyke. "Edwin has told me everything," pursued Claudia. "He came down here in answer to a letter from your husband inviting him to an interview."

"Quite correct. The letter I hold is written in answer to one sent by Sir Hector."

"Very good," remarked Miss Lemby, "we are agreed so far. Well, then, Edwin told you, I presume, why Sir Hector wished to see him?"

Lady Wyke nodded. "Yes. I appeared and spoilt Hector's plan to marry you. He knew that he had made a will years ago leaving his property to me, and, as he hated me like poison he wished to make another will. He would have done so after marriage, had you become his wife, since he could not make it before the ceremony. But as I prevented the marriage, and Hector did not wish to see me benefit in any way, he proposed to make Edwin his heir on condition that he married you."

"I take it, then, that the will was not made when Edwin came here."

"No. What are you getting at? Do you mean to say that there is a will, and that I have destroyed it?"

"Oh, no. But I merely point out that as no will was made Edwin had no reason to murder Sir Hector."

"He murdered him because he did not wish Hector to marry you."

"You forget," said Claudia, coolly. "Your reappearance prevented Sir Hector from making me his wife. Edwin had no reason to fear the prevention of his marriage with me from that quarter. And as Sir Hector wished to make a will in Edwin's favour, Edwin would scarcely have been such a fool as to murder the man and spoil the chance of his getting five thousand ............