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184 passage. She—she has had a trying time, Mr. Heriot. I—I hope you will remember that."

"Most assuredly, Mrs. Lowndes. And I will only keep her a short while. No; please don't trouble to come with me. I can find my way quite easily."

He walked down the dusky passage, and presently Mrs. Lowndes heard a door shut crisply. She looked at her husband with a little shiver.

"I'm afraid of that man, Gregory," she said. "He looks so—so cruel."

"Well, what can you expect? You know what people are saying—and so does he, if she doesn't. If he's innocent he's got to get all she can tell out of her—and sharp, too. Emmett doesn't care about having a disappearance off his tug, and he's lodged complaints with Forsyth already in order to clear himself. It's a case of suspected murder, anyway."

"But why can't they be content with asking the men"

"They have asked the men. Hinds has done nothing else these two days. And he has had Jackson patrolling Quatre Fourches Channel for information, too. It's impossible that Mrs. Ducane can't know" "If you dare to believe she had a hand in it"

"I reckon I can believe anything," said Lowndes philosophically. "Or nothing. It's not our business, Amy. I fancy Heriot will sort all he wants out of this mess, anyway. He has all his senses, that fellow."

In the side room Jennifer sat by the window looking out on the silver lake streaked with dark shadows. She had the last Lowndes baby in her arms, and her grasp tightened round it instinctively when she looked up and saw Dick at the door. He came to her in silence, walking lightly, and his face showed something of the strain which he had been through.

"Please allow me," he said quietly, and stooped, drawing the sleeping child from her with the manner of one clearing decks before action. He laid it in the seat of a big chair and came back to her, with a very faint smile on his lips. But it was not the smile which she had seen there last. –