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and derive inspiration from her. I cannot ask you to hope that she will smile upon your efforts, but it ought to be an encouragement."

They were soon immersed in that reverential silence and concentration which the game fosters: and if Miss Rendall-Smith's portrait did not receive much of their attention, it is probable that the lady herself, had she been present, would have been treated with little more ceremony. Reeves, however, was bad at taking his mind off a subject, and when, as dummy, he was given a short interval of unrepose, his eyes strayed to the photograph anew. Was this the face, perhaps, that had lured Brotherhood to his strange doom? Was she even an accomplice, burdened now with the participation of a guilty secret? Or was she the sufferer by the crime; and did she wait vainly for news of Davenant, little knowing that it was Davenant who lay waiting for burial at Paston Whitchurch? Poor woman, it seemed likely in any case that she would have much to bear—was it decent to inflict on her a detective interview and a series of importunate questions? He crushed down the insurgent weakness: there was no other way for it, she must be confronted with the facts. The face looked even more beautiful as you saw it in the firelight, shaded from the glare of the lamp. He strolled over to look at it again just as the last trump was led.

"Good God!"

The others turned, in all the irritation of an