To Helen’s awakening suspicions, it was an artistic performance, with calculated gradations of sighs, groans and fluttering lids.

Directly her eyes were open, she glared at Helen.

“Send her away,” she said weakly.

Miss Warren caught Helen’s eye.

“Please go, Miss Capel. I’m sorry.”

Forgetful of her pose, Lady Warren turned on her stepdaughter, like some fish-wife.

“Idiot. Send her packing. Tonight.”

She closed her eyes again, and murmured, “Doctor. I want the doctor.”

“He’ll be here presently,” Miss Warren assured her.

“Why is he always late?” complained the invalid.

“Because he likes to see how you are, the last thing,” explained Miss Warren ungrammatically.

“It’s because he’s a slacker,” snarled Lady Warren. “I must change my doctor… . Blanche. That girl wasn’t Newton’s wife. Why doesn’t she come to see me?”

“You are not strong enough for visitors.” “That’s not it. I know. She’s afraid of me.”

The idea seemed to please Lady Warren, for her face puckered up in a smile. Helen, who was watching, from a safe distance, thought that she looked positively evil. In that moment, she could almost believe in the old story of a murdered husband.

Her eye fell on the nurse’s small single-bed.

“I wouldn’t be that nurse, for all the money in the world,” she shuddered.

Suddenly, Miss Warren became aware that she was still in the room, for she crossed over to her corner.

“I can manage by myself, Miss Capel”

Her tone was so-cold that Helen tried to justify herself.

“I hope you don’t think I did anything to annoy her. She changed all of a sudden. Indeed, she took a fancy to me. Anyway, she kept asking me to sleep with her, tonight.”

Miss Warren’s expression was incredulous, although her words were polite.

“I am sure that you were kind and tactful”

Her glance towards the door was a hint of dismissal, and Helen turned to go; but her head was humming with confused suspicions which fought for utterance. Although experience had taught her that interference is usually resented, she felt that she must warn Miss Warren.

“I think there is something you ought to know,” she said, lowering her voice. “Lady Warren asked me to get her something from the little cupboard above the wardrobe mirror.”

“Why do you consider that important?” asked Miss Warren.

“Because it was a revolver.” Helen achieved her effect. Miss Warren looked directly at her, with a startled expression.

“Where is it now?” she asked.

“On, that table.”

Miss Warren swooped down upon the small parcel with the avidity of some bird of prey. Her long white fingers loosened a fold of the silk wrapping. Then she held it out, so that Helen might see it.

It was a large spectacle case.

As she stared at it, Helen was swept off her feet by the tidal wave of an exciting possibility.

“That is not the same shape,” she declared. “I felt the other. It had jutting-out bits.”

“What exactly are you hinting at?”

“I think that, when I went to fetch you, Lady Warren hid the revolver and put this in its place.”

“And are you aware that my mother has heart-disease, and has been unable to move, for months?”

All hope of conviction died, as Helen looked at Miss Warren’s skeptical face. Its fluid lines seemed to have been suddenly arrested by a sharp frost.

“I’m sorry if I’ve made a mistake,” she faltered. “Only, I thought I ought to keep nothing back.”

“I am sure you were trying to be helpful,” Miss ‘Warren told her. “But it only hinders to imagine stupid impossibilities.” She added, with a grim smile, “I suppose, like all girls, you go to the Pictures.”

In the circumstances, her reproach was almost painful irony. She seemed to be divided from Helen, not only by space, but by time. “She’s pre-historic,” thought the girl. Her small figure appeared’ actually shrunken as she went out of the blue room.

Besides being cheated out of the recognition, which was her due, she did not feel satisfied with Miss Warren’s acceptance of the revolver incident.

“The customer is always right,” she reminded herself, as she walked down the stairs. “But there’s one comfort.