“He went to his sitting-room, and stayed there.  My husband and I retired early that night, but later we were awakened by a very loud knock at the front door.  We heard Mr. Austin Turold, who was still up, go down and open it.  Then we heard a very loud voice, outside—­Mr. Robert Turold’s man-servant, it appears.  We heard him tell Mr. Austin that his brother had been found shot.  Mr. Turold returned upstairs, and some time afterwards we heard him go down again and out.

“I was so upset that I arose and dressed myself to await Mr. Turold’s return.  I thought he might like a cup of coffee when he returned, so I decided to go downstairs myself and prepare it.  As I passed the passage which led to Mr. Charles Turold’s room, I noticed a light underneath his door.  I rather wondered, as he was still up, why he had not gone with his father, but I was passing on without thinking any more about it when I happened to notice that the light beneath the door was fluctuating in the strangest way.  First it was very bright, then it became quite dim, but the next moment it would be bright again.

“That alarmed me so much that I walked along the passage to see what it meant.  I thought perhaps the young man had fallen asleep with the window open and left the gas flaring in the wind.  I stood for a moment outside the door wondering what I ought to do.  Then I heard a crackling sound, and smelt something burning.  That alarmed me still more, because I knew no fire had been lit in the room that day.  I wondered if the bedroom was on fire, and I knelt down and tried to see through the keyhole.

“At first I could see nothing except a bright light and the shadow of a form on the wall.  Then I made out the form of Charles Turold, standing in his dressing-gown in front of the fireplace, in which a fire of kindling wood was leaping and blazing.  I could not make out at first what he was doing.  He seemed to be stooping over the fire, moving something about.  Then I saw.  He was drying his clothes—­the suit he had worn that day.  They must have been very wet, for the steam was rising from them.

“I must have made a noise which startled him, for I saw him turn quickly and stare at the closed door, then walk towards it.  I went away as quickly and noiselessly as I could, and as I turned the corner of the passage, out of sight, his door opened, and then closed again.  He had looked out and, seeing nobody, gone back into his room.

“I went downstairs to make the coffee and wait for Mr. Turold.  I had to wait some time.  When I did hear the sound of his key in the door, I went up the hall with a cup of coffee in my hand.  Mr. Turold seemed surprised to see me.  He looked at me in a questioning sort of way as he took the coffee, and stood there sipping it.  As he handed me back the cup he told me in a low voice that his brother was dead.  I said that was why I had waited up—­because I had heard the knock and the dreadful news.  Mr. Turold, in the same low voice, then said he was very much afraid his brother had taken his own life.