“Perhaps you are mistaken.  Events have conspired to point to you as the unconscious source of a good deal that has happened.  Personally, Miss Layton, I incline to the belief that you are no more responsible than David Hume-Frazer.  If the mystery of Sir Alan’s death is ever solved, I feel assured that its genesis will be found in circumstances not only beyond your control, but wholly independent, and likely to operate in the same way if both you and your fiance had never either seen or heard of Beechcroft Hall.”

“Oh, Mr. Brett,” she cried impulsively, “I wish I could be certain of that!”

“Try and adopt my opinion,” he answered, with a smile, for the girl’s dubiety was not very flattering.

“I know I am saying the wrong thing.  I cannot help it.  Margaret’s distress tried me sorely.  Be gentle with her—­that is all I ask.”

The door opened, and Mrs. Capella entered.  Helen’s observations had prepared Brett to some extent, yet he was shocked to see the havoc wrought in Margaret’s appearance by days of suffering and nights of sleepless agony.

Her face was drawn and ivory-white, her eyes unnaturally brilliant, her lips bloodless and pinched.  She was again garbed in black, and the sombre effect of her dress supplied a startling contrast to the deathly pallor of her features.

She recognised Brett’s presence by a silent bow, and sank on to a couch.  She was not acting, but really ill, overwrought, inert, physically weak from want of food and sleep.

Helen ran to her side, and took her in a loving clasp.

“You poor darling!” she cried.  “Why are you suffering so?”

Now there was nothing on earth Brett detested so thoroughly as a display of feminine sentiment, no matter how spontaneous or well-timed.  At heart he was conscious of kindred emotions.  A child’s cry, a woman’s sob, the groan of a despairing man, had power to move him so strangely that he had more than once allowed a long-sought opportunity to slip from his grasp rather than sear his own soul by displaying callous indifference to the sufferings of others.

The tears of these, two, however, set his teeth on edge.  What were they whining about—­the affections of a doll of a man whose antics had been rightly treated by David when he proved to Capella that there is nothing like leather.

For the barrister laboured under no delusions respecting either woman.  Margaret, who secretly feared her husband, was only pining for his rekindled admiration, whilst Helen, though true as steel to David Hume, could not be expected to regard the Italian’s misplaced passion as utterly outrageous.  No woman can absolutely hate and despise a man for loving her, no matter how absurd or impossible his passion may be.  She may proclaim, even feel, a vast amount of indignation, but in the secret recesses of her soul, hidden perhaps from her own scrutiny, she can find excuses for him.