Hand in hand, they sat down together by the fire.  He gave her an account of the double inquest, and the result.

“When we came out,” he added, calmly, “there were not quite so many ready to lynch me as before.”

Her hand trembled in his.  The horror of his experience, the anguished sympathy of hers, spoke in the slight movement, and the pressure that answered it.  Some day, but not yet, it would be possible to put it into words.

“And I might do nothing!” she breathed.

“Nothing!” He smiled upon her, but his tone brought a shudder—­the shudder of the traveller who looks back upon the inch which has held him from the abyss.  But for Cyril Boden’s adventure of the night before, would she ever have seen him again?

“I was a long time with my solicitors this morning,” he said abruptly.

“Yes?” She turned her face to his; but his morbid sense could detect in it no sign of any special interest.

“The will was opened on the day of the funeral.  It was a great surprise.  I had reason to suppose that it contained a distinct provision invalidating all bequests to me should I propose to hand over any of the property, or money derived from the property, to Felicia Melrose, or her mother.  But it contained nothing of the kind.  The first draft of the will was sent to his solicitors at the end of July.  They put it into form, and it was signed the day after he communicated his intentions to me.  There is no doubt whatever that he meant to insert such a clause.  He spoke of it to me and to others.  I thought it was done But as a matter of fact he never either drafted it himself, or gave final instructions for it.  His Carlisle man—­Hanson—­thought it was because of his horror of death.  He had put off making his will as long as possible—­got it done—­and then could not bring himself to touch it again!  To send for it back—­to finger and fuss with it—­seemed to bring death nearer and he did not mean to die.”

He paused, shading his eyes with his hand.  The visualising sense, stimulated by the nerve strain of the preceding weeks, beheld with ghastly clearness the face of Melrose in death, with the blood-stain on the lips.

“And so,” he resumed, “there was no short way out.  By merely writing to Miss Melrose, to offer her a fortune, it was not possible to void the will.”

He paused.  The intensity of his look held her motionless.

“You remember—­how I refused—­when you asked me—­to take any steps toward voiding it?”

Her lips made a dumb movement of assent.

“But—­at last—­I took them.  In the final interview I had with Melrose, he threatened me with the cancelling of his will, unless I consented—­Tatham has told you—­to sell him my uncle’s gems.  I refused.  And so far as words could, he there and then stripped me of his property.  It is by the mere accident of his murder at that precise moment that it has come to me.  Now then—­what is to be done?”