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Ricardo felt like a child in the presence of his schoolmaster He

was convicted of presumption He had set down his questions with

the belief that they covered the ground And here were two of the

utht of

"Did she go, before the murder, to join a lover? Or after it? At

so to Vauquier's story, she

must have run upstairs to fetch her coat Was thethe interval when she was upstairs? Was the salon dark when

she caerly,

noticing nothing a if the salon were dark, and Mme Dauvray's body lay under

the s at the side?"

Ricardo leaned forward eagerly

"That must be the truth," he cried; and Wethermill's voice broke

hastily in: "It is not the truth and I will tell you why Celia Harland was to

have married me this week"

There was so much pain and misery in his voice that Ricardo was

moved as he had seldom been Wethermill buried his face in his

hands Hanaud shook his head and gazed across the table at Ricardo

with an expression which the latter was at no loss to understand

Lovers were impracticable people But he--Hanaud--he knew the