"I haven't had time to think much about it;" the tone was rough and sore. "Mr. Dering seems to have come into a large sum of money, and such things have been known to upset men's brains before now."
"Still, he might write something of consequence, now that this gentleman has come," interposed the inspector.
But when Wingfield, standing by that which he now knew was indeed his friend, watched the painful, laboured moving of the pencil across the slate which had been hurriedly fetched some two hours before from the young Hintons' nursery, all he saw, traced again and again, were the words:
"Look after Louise. Look after Louise ..." and then at last: "I mean to die. I mean to die. I mean to die."
V
SHAMEFUL BEHAVIOUR?
"Yes; there; wives be such a provoking class of society, because though they be never right, they be never more than half wrong."—The Tranter in Under the Greenwood Tree.