“Now do you deny it?” Madge demanded.  “Answer, and go!”

“I deny everything,” he snarled hoarsely.  “It is a forgery—­a tissue of lies!  Believe me, Madge!  Don’t spurn me!  Don’t cast me off!  I will prove to you—­”

“I say go!”

The girl’s voice was as hard and cold as steel.  She pointed to the door as Nevill made a step toward her.  Her ravishing beauty, lost to him forever, maddened him.  For an instant he was tempted to fly at her throat and bruise its loveliness.  But just then a bell pealed loudly through the house.  The front door was heard to open, and voices mingled with rapid steps.  An elderly man burst unceremoniously into the room, and Nevill recognized Stephen Foster’s clerk and shop assistant.  Bad news was stamped on his agitated face.

“What is the matter, Hawkins?” Madge asked, breathlessly.

“Oh, how can I tell you, Miss Foster?  It is terrible!  Your father—­”

“What of him?”

“He is dead!  He shot himself in his office an hour ago.  The police—­”

The girl’s cheeks turned to the whiteness of marble.  She gave one cry of anguish, reeled, and fell unconscious to the floor.  Mrs. Sedgewick rushed in, wringing her hands and wailing hysterically.

“See to your young mistress—­she has fainted,” Nevill said, hoarsely.  “Fetch cold water at once.”

He looked once at Madge’s pale and lovely face—­he felt that it was for the last time—­and then he took Hawkins by the arm and pulled him half-forcibly into the hall.

“Tell me everything,” he whispered, excitedly.  “What has happened?”

“There isn’t much to tell, Mr. Nevill,” the man replied.  “Two Scotland Yard men came to the shop at five o’clock.  They arrested my employer for stealing that Rembrandt from Lamb and Drummond, and they found the picture in the safe.  Mr. Foster asked permission to make a statement in writing—­he took things coolly:—­and they let him do it.  He wrote for half an hour, and then, before the police could stop him, he snatched a pistol from a drawer and shot himself through the head.  I was so flustered I hardly knew what I was doing, but I thought first of Miss Madge, whom I knew from often bringing messages and parcels to the house—­”

“The statement?  What was in it?” Nevill interrupted.

“I don’t know, sir!”

“Then I must find out!  I am off to town—­I can’t stop!  You will be needed here, Hawkins.  Do all that you can for Miss Foster.”

With those words, spoken incoherently, Nevill jammed on his hat and hurried from the house.  He turned instinctively toward Grove Park, remembering that the nearest railway station was there.  He was haunted by a terrible fear as he traversed the dark streets with an unsteady gait.  Worse than ruin threatened him.  He shuddered at the thought of arrest and punishment.  He could not doubt that Stephen Foster had written a full confession.