desperate. You see, he'd borrowed most of the money he lost in
the Blue Star, and he was up a tree. That's why he shot himself
when they told him he had no show."

The horror was sweeping over Mary in great, deafening waves.

"He shot himself? He killed himself because of THAT? "

"Well, he didn't kill himself, exactly. He dragged on two months
before he died." Parvis emitted the statement as unemotionally
as a gramophone grinding out its "record."

"You mean that he tried to kill himself, and failed? And tried
again?"

"Oh, he didn't have to try again," said Parvis, grimly.

They sat opposite each other in silence, he swinging his eye-
glass thoughtfully about his finger, she, motionless, her arms
stretched along her knees in an attitude of rigid tension.

"But if you knew all this," she began at length, hardly able to
force her voice above a whisper, "how is it that when I wrote you
at the time of my husband's disappearance you said you didn't
understand his letter?"

Parvis received this without perceptible discomfiture. "Why, I
didn't understand it--strictly speaking. And it wasn't the time
to talk about it, if I had. The Elwell business was settled when
the suit was withdrawn. Nothing I could have told you would have