table, his eyes gleaming with an almost fiendish excitement; then the
gleam faded, and he turned back to the girl.

Godfrey cast one astonished glance at him and strode to the chair. I
saw his face quiver with sudden horror, I saw him catch at the table
for support, and for an instant he stood staring down. Then he turned
stiffly toward me and motioned me to approach.

In the chair a man sat huddled forward--a grey-haired man, clad in a
white robe. His hands were gripping the chair-arms as though in agony.
His head hung down almost upon his knees.

Silently Godfrey reached down and raised the head. And a cry of horror
burst from both of us.

The face was purple with congested blood, the tongue swollen and
horribly protruding, the eyes suffused and starting from their
sockets. And then, at a motion from Godfrey's finger, I saw that about
the neck a cord was tightly knotted. The man had been strangled.

Godfrey, after a breathless moment in which he made sure that the man
was quite dead, let the head fall forward again. It turned me sick to
see how low it sagged, how limp it hung. And I saw that the collar of
the white robe was spotted with blood.

I do not know what was in Godfrey's mind, but, by a common impulse, we
turned and looked at Swain. He was still on his knees beside the
couch. Apparently he had forgotten our presence.

"It's plain enough," said Godfrey, his voice thick with emotion. "She