By that evening, Horace Mayfield was talking it all over with me in the hotel at Southampton.

"Well, Hubert, my boy," he said, "a woman, we know, can do a great deal"; he smiled his familiar smile, like a genial fat toad; "but if your Yorke-Bannerman succeeds in getting a confession out of Sebastian, she'll extort my admiration." He paused a moment, then he added, in an afterthought: "I say that she'll extort my admiration; but, mind you, I don't know that I shall feel inclined to believe it.

The facts have always appeared to me--strictly between ourselves, you know--to admit of only one explanation." "Wait and see," I answered.

"You think it more likely that Miss Wade will have persuaded Sebastian to confess to things that never happened than that he will convince you of Yorke-Bannerman's innocence ?" The great Q.C.fingered his cigarette-holder affectionately.
"You hit it first time," he answered.

"That is precisely my attitude.
The evidence against our poor friend was so peculiarly black.