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 two small depressions at the side away from the wall.

Near the door there were little rolls of torn newspaper—the paper (Philip thought, with a sudden feeling of sickness) with which they had stuffed the cracks of the door to imprison the smell of gas. A newspaper and a Bible lay on the table beside the wash-bowl.

"I left everything just as it was," said the woman; "just as the Coroner ordered."

Those two depressions on the side of the bed suddenly took on a terrible fascination for Philip. It was as if they were filled by the forms of two kneeling figures who were praying.

"Here's the bag they brought," said the woman. She bent down and opened it. "You see it was empty. If I'd known that . . . but how was I to know?" It was a cheap bag made of paper and painted to imitate leather. It stood in a corner, mute, reproachful, empty.

Philip was staring at it in silence, and McTavish said again, "Maybe you'd better go downstairs and wait."

For a moment there was no answer, and then Philip replied, "No, I mean to stay. I've got to hear it."

The woman began to tell her story. They had come to the rooming-house about nine o'clock in the evening. "I remember the hour because Hazel—that's the girl that helps me with the house—had finished the dishes and was going to meet a friend." She had one room empty, and she was only too glad to rent it, especially to a clergyman. Oh, he had told her who he was. He told her he was the Reverend Castor and that the woman with him was his wife. They were, "he said, on their way east, and came to the rooming-house because he