Dan Fitzgerald, dangling his long legs disconsolately from Lewis Gordon's office-table two days after, said as much himself. 'The fact is, I ought to have killed her; only I didn't feel up to it to-day, after my journey. Oh, you may smile, Gordon!' he went on more eagerly, his face losing some of its dejection in his love of the extravagant, 'but it's true. That sort of woman doesn't belong to our civilised age; and we are absolutely at a disadvantage before her. There was I, as the mad old potter said, with a hero's measure round the chest, driven to words and threats of a policeman. I couldn't, even at the time, but think of that old sinner Zubr-ul-Zamân and what her chance would have been with him--just an order, a cry, and then silence. Sure, one feels helpless at times when one stands face to face with that old world. What's the use of strength--what's even the use of brains nowadays except to make money? There was I, with that woman, I give you my word, at the end of her tether, but 'twas the hangman's rope to me if I went a step closer, and so I didn't.'

'If you didn't,' remarked Lewis grimly, 'there isn't a civilised man who will; so we had better try something else. Still, unless that woman is silenced, we must face an inquiry, and then the facts of poor Keene's death must come out. By the way, Miss Tweedie knows them, but we have agreed to keep them, if possible, from my cousin. There seemed no use----'

'I'm glad of that,' interrupted Dan, with a sudden quiver of his mouth. 'I should be sorry to have that memory spoilt.'

He was pacing up and down the room now, his hands in his pockets, the brightness of his face absorbed as it were by a frown.

'Gordon!' he said abruptly. 'I'd give everything I possess if I could lay my hands on that cursed pot. Not that it would satisfy the horse-leech's daughter unless it contained the pearls--which isn't likely, for I believe the whole story to be a myth. But the thought that it is somewhere visible, palpable to the meanest fool on God's earth, is maddening. Or even if we could say to that she-devil, "do your worst." Oh! why didn't you send that wire sooner, and save poor George from his needless death?'

'Why didn't you tell the truth about it at first? you might as well ask that. It would have been better, as it turns out, if you had; but who can tell? As it is, I'm quite ready, as I told you before, to burke everything I can, in conscience; but, so far as I can see, it will do no good. If that woman breaks silence, the main facts must come to light.'

'I wish I had killed her,' said Dan regretfully.

'And I wish she were dead,' replied Lewis cynically, 'that is the difference between us. You are active, I'm passive, but we don't either of us seem to be of much use.'

That was the honest truth, and they had to confess as much to Gwen Boynton that afternoon. She looked a little haggard as she listened even while she protested bravely that in her opinion the vile creature would never dare to put her lies to the proof. So they sat and played at cross purposes; for she could not tell them of the papers she held in absolute disproof of what would be the first accusation, and they wished if possible to save her from the knowledge of George Keene's suicide. Perhaps if they had set their own feelings aside and told her the truth, she might even then have confessed her lion's share in the blame. But only perhaps; for she was a clever woman, capable of seeing that her confession could do no good now, and that she had, as it were, lost her right to save poor George from suspicion. Besides, she had brought herself to believe in the duty of denial; for, like many another woman, she required a really virtuous motive before she could do a really wrong thing; in sober fact--even in her worst aberrations from the truth--never losing hold of a fixed desire to be amiable and estimable. To this self-deception, as was natural, Lewis Gordon's half-hearted belief was gall and wormwood, while Dan's wholesale confidence was balm indeed. She could not refrain from telling him so when the former, pleading stress of work, left the latter alone with her beside the cosy little tea-table glittering in the firelight; for Gwen was one of those people who will never have been more comfortable in body and soul than they are on their death-beds.

'Now, don't spoil it all, dear, by wanting me to marry you to-morrow,' she said half-laughing, half-crying. 'We are all too busy for such talk, and too sad--at least I am. He was so good to me--you don't know how good. I shall break my heart if this vile creature succeeds in sullying his memory.'