“Why should you look so well?  Because you are the coming man, they say.  It makes me so proud to be your friend—­even your neglected, if not quite discarded, friend.  Every one says you have done such splendid work for England, and that now you can have anything you want.  The ball is at your feet.  Dear man, you ought to look like a morning-glory, and not as you do.  Tell me, Ian, are you ill, or is it only the reaction after all you’ve done?”

“No doubt it’s the reaction,” he replied.

“I know you didn’t like Adrian Fellowes much,” she remarked, watching him closely.  “He behaved shockingly at the Glencader Mine affair—­shockingly.  Tynie was for pitching him out of the house, and taking the consequences; but, all the same, a sudden death like that all alone must have been dreadful.  Please tell me, what was the verdict?”

“Heart failure was the verdict; with regret for a promising life cut short, and sympathy with the relatives.”

“I never heard that he had heart trouble,” was the meditative response.  “But—­well, of course, it was heart failure.  When the heart stops beating, there’s heart failure.  What a silly verdict!”

“It sounded rather worse than silly,” was Ian’s comment.

“Did—­did they cut him up, to see if he’d taken morphia, or an overdose of laudanum or veronal or something?  I had a friend who died of taking quantities of veronal while you were abroad so long—­a South American, she was.”

He nodded.  “It was all quite in order.  There were no signs of poison, they said, but the heart had had a shock of some kind.  There had been what they called lesion, and all that kind of thing, and not sufficient strength for recovery.”

“I suppose Mr. Mappin wasn’t present?” she asked, curiously.  “I know it is silly in a way, but don’t you remember how interested Mr. Fellowes was in that needle?  Was Mr. Mappin there?”

“There was no reason why he should be there.”

“What witnesses were called?”

“Myself and the porter of Fellowes’ apartments, his banker, his doctor—­”

“And Al’mah?” she asked, obliquely.

He did not reply at once, but regarded her inquiringly.

“You needn’t be afraid to speak about Al’mah,” she continued.  “I saw something queer at Glencader.  Then I asked Tynie, and he told me that—­well, all about her and Adrian Fellowes.  Was Al’mah there?  Did she give evidence?”

“She was there to be called, if necessary,” he responded, “but the coroner was very good about it.  After the autopsy the authorities said evidence was unnecessary, and—­”

“You arranged that, probably?”

“Yes; it was not difficult.  They were so stupid—­and so kind.”

She smoothed out the folds of her dress reflectively, then got up as if with sudden determination, and came near to him.  Her face was pale now, and her eyes were greatly troubled.

“Ian,” she said, in a low voice, “I don’t believe that Adrian Fellowes died a natural death, and I don’t believe that he killed himself.  He would not have that kind of courage, even in insanity.  He could never go insane.  He could never care enough about anything to do so.  He—­did—­not—­kill—­himself.  There, I am sure of it.  And he did not die a natural death, either.”