"If madam will be so good," he persisted.

She shrugged her shoulders and followed him. Something in the
man's earnest tone and almost pleading look convinced her, at
least, of his good intentions. Besides, the interest which her
question had undoubtedly aroused amongst the bystanders was, to
say the least of it, embarrassing. He pulled the door to after
them.

"Madam," he said, "there was a Mr. Hamilton Fynes who came over
by the Lusitania, and who had certainly engaged rooms in this
hotel, but he unfortunately, it seems, met with an accident on
his way from Liverpool."

Her manner changed at once. She began to understand what it all
meant. Her lips parted, her eyes were wide open.

"An accident?" she faltered.

He gently rolled a chair up to her. She sank obediently into it.

"Madam," he said, "it was a very bad accident indeed. I trust
that Mr. Hamilton Fynes was not a very intimate friend or a
relative of yours. It would perhaps be better for you to read the
account for yourself."

He placed a newspaper in her hands. She read the first few lines
and suddenly turned upon him. She was white to the lips now, and
there was real terror in her tone. Yet if he had been in a
position to have analyzed the emotion she displayed, he might