have infuriated Captain Redmayne or anybody else."

Mark then related his own brief personal experience of Redmayne on
the occasion of their meeting by the quarry pools. For some reason
this personal anecdote touched Flora Reed and the detective observed
that she was genuinely moved by it.

Indeed she began to weep and presently rose and left them. Her
parents were able to speak more freely upon her departure.

Mr. Reed indeed, from being somewhat silent and indifferent, grew
voluble.

"I think it right to tell you," he said, "that my wife and I never
cared much for this engagement. Redmayne meant well and had a good
heart I believe. He was free-handed and exceedingly enamoured of
Flora. He made violent love from the first and his affection was
returned. But I never could see him a steady, married man. He was a
rover and the war had made him--not exactly inhuman, but apparently
unconscious of his own obligations to society and his own duty, as a
reasonable being, to help build up the broken organization of social
life. He only lived for pleasure and sport or spending money; and
though I do not suggest he would have been a bad husband, I did not
see the makings of a stable home in his ideas of the future. He had
inherited some forty thousand pounds, but he was very ignorant of
the value of money and he showed no particular good sense on the
subject of his coming responsibilities."

Mark Brendon thanked them for their information and repeated his
growing conviction that the subject of their speech had probably