"He is well," she answered falteringly.
"Why did you not bring him with you?" continued Mrs. Greyson lightly, yet with a secret determination to know the cause of her guest's evident disturbance.
"He did not know I was coming," Edith responded in a low voice. "That is what I came to talk about. I thought you might understand; but it involves a third person, and perhaps I ought not to tell you. I am sure, though," she went on, gaining confidence now that the ice was broken, "that I can trust you. A friend of Arthur's came to dine to-night, and just as the door-bell rang, I found him to be the man I once saw commit murder in Paris."
"Murder!" exclaimed Helen, turning white. "Commit murder?"
"Consent to it," corrected Edith, unconsciously a little pleased to have produced so great an effect upon her usually self-possessed friend. "He looked on while Frontier took poison, without trying to prevent him."
"But that," Mrs. Greyson said slowly, "is hardly the same thing as murder."
"It is quite as bad," Edith protested earnestly. "It makes me shudder to think of his dining alone with Arthur at this moment. Who knows what might happen!"
"Nothing tragic, I think," Helen replied smiling. "He does not go about with pistols in his belt, I suppose.'
"It is awful to me," Edith continued, with increasing excitement, too much stirred to notice the sarcasm. "I told Arthur I could not sit down with a murderer, and just at that moment we heard his step, and I ran away upstairs; and then I felt dreadfully, and I came to you."
"I thank you for your confidence. But what do you mean to do? What will
Arthur tell him?"