him almost from the first. I gave you the name Bernard unthinkingly,
as that was the name he insisted upon living under. He explained his
father required this, or else would stop his remittances. I had to
humor him, although I thought it most strange. Is that all you wish to
know?"

"All now, yes. I must have time to think, and plan what is best for us
to do. I can already see my duty sufficiently clear, but not how to go
at it. The fact is, Mrs. Henley--"

"Would it not be better for you to call me Viola?" she interrupted.
"Someone might overhear, and we must continue to carry out the
deception, I suppose."

"It will be safer, if you do not object."

"I? Oh, no; I shall not care in the least. You were saying?"

"This, Viola," and her eyes suddenly flashed into mine, "the conditions
I have already discovered here--in this house--are no less strange, and
dangerous than the mission which brought us here. Everything looks
bad. You ought to know it, and you are strong enough to be told. I do
not know who tried your door last night, and later escaped down the
trellis. If I did I could determine what action to take. But one
thing I do know--there was murder committed in this house."

"Murder!" her face went white, her fingers clasping my sleeve, "Who was
killed? Coombs? That woman?"

"Neither. A man I never saw before. I heard the same shot which