“I HAVE left this terrible thing about once too often already,” and Lord Harry took it from the table. “Let me put it in a place of safety.”

He unlocked a drawer and opened it. “I will put it here,” he said. “Why”— as if suddenly recollecting something —“here is my will. I shall be leaving that about on the table next. Iris, my dear, I have left everything to you. All will be yours.” He took out the document. “Keep it for me, Iris. It is yours. You may as well have it now, and then I know, in your careful hands, it will be quite safe. Not only is everything left to you, but you are the sole executrix.”

Iris took the will without a word. She understood, now, what it meant. If she was the sole executrix she would have to act. If everything was left to her she would have to receive the money. Thus, at a single step, she became not only cognisant of the conspiracy, but the chief agent and instrument to carry it out.

This done, her husband had only to tell her what had to be done at once, in consequence of her premature arrival. He had planned, he told her, not to send for her — not to let her know or suspect anything of the truth until the money had been paid to the widow by the Insurance Company. As things had turned out, it would be best for both of them to leave Passy at once — that very evening — before her arrival was known by anybody, and to let Vimpany carry out the rest of the business. He was quite to be trusted — he would do everything that was wanted. “Already,” he said, “the Office will have received from the doctor a notification of my death. Yesterday evening he wrote to everybody — to my brother — confound him!— and to the family solicitor. Every moment that I stay here increases the danger of my being seen and recognised — after the Office has been informed that I am dead.”

“Where are we to go?”

“I have thought of that. There is a little quiet town in Belgium where no English people ever come at all. We will go there, then we will take another name; we will be buried to the outer world, and will live, for the rest of our lives, for ourselves alone. Do you agree?”

“I will do, Harry, whatever you think best.”

“It will be for a time only. When all is ready, you will have to step to the front — the will in your hand to be proved — to receive what is due to you as the widow of Lord Harry Norland. You will go back to Belgium, after awhile, so as to disarm suspicion, to become once more the wife of William Linville.”

Iris sighed heavily, Then she caught her husband’s eyes gathering with doubt, and she smiled again.

“In everything, Harry,” she said, “I am your servant. When shall we start?”

“Immediately. I have only to write a letter to the doctor. Where is your bag? Is this all? Let me go first to see that no one is about. Have you got the will? Oh! it is here — yes — in the bag. I will bring along the bag.”

He ran downstairs, and came up quickly.

“The nurse has returned,” he said. “She is in the spare room.”

“What nurse?”

“The nurse who came after Fanny left. The man was better, but the doctor thought it wisest to have a nurse to the end,” he explained hurriedly, and she suspected nothing till afterwards. “Come down quietly — go out by the back-door — she will not see you.” So Iris obeyed. She went out of her own house like a thief, or like her own maid Fanny, had she known. She passed through the garden, and out of the garden into the road. There she wait............