translated it to him aloud.

"Tutchemoff went to the woman. She is dead."

On hearing this the Earl became livid with fury, in fact this
was the day that he struck her with the sausage.

Then one day while the Earl was absent on a bat hunt,
Gertrude, who was turning over his correspondence, with that
sweet feminine instinct of interest that rose superior to
ill-treatment, suddenly found the key to the mystery.

Lord Nosh was not the rightful owner of the Taws. His distant
cousin of the older line, the true heir, had died in a Russian
prison to which the machinations of the Earl, while Ambassador
at Tschminsk, had consigned him. The daughter of this cousin
was the true owner of Nosham Taws.

The family story, save only that the documents before her withheld
the name of the rightful heir, lay bare to Gertrude's eye.

Strange is the heart of woman. Did Gertrude turn from the Earl
with spurning? No. Her own sad fate had taught her sympathy.

Yet still the mystery remained! Why did the Earl start
perceptibly each time that he looked into her face? Sometimes
he started as much as four centimetres, so that one could
distinctly see him do it. On such occasions he would hastily
drain a dipper of rum and vichy water and become again the
correct English gentleman.