ash;or rather your step-uncle—Mr Gleason.”

Lindsay slumped into a chair, and raised his wild, staring black eyes to Prescott’s face.

“Go on,” he muttered; “what about him?”

“Didn’t you expect him here to-night?”

“Yes—yes—and he didn’t come—what is it? Has anything happened? What has happened? Who did it?”

“Who did what?” Prescott flung the words at him, in a fierce low tone. “What do you know? Out with it!”

His menacing air quite finished the young man, and he buried his face in his hands, sobbing convulsively.

A slight rustle was heard, and a lovely vision appeared in the doorway.

“What is going on?” said a clear young voice. “Louis, what is the matter?”

Phyllis Lindsay faced the stranger as she put her query.

The sight nearly dazzled Prescott, for Miss Lindsay was at her best that night.

She was a little thing, with soft dark hair, bundled about her ears, soft, dark eyes, that were now challenging Prescott sternly, and a slim, dainty little figure, robed in sequin-dripping gauze, from which her soft neck and shoulders rose like a flower from its sheath.

“Who are you?” she asked, not rudely, but with her eyes wide in dismay. “What are you doing to my brother?”

“Miss Lindsay?” and Prescott bowed politely. “I bring distressing news. Your uncle—that is, Mr Robert Gleason, is—has—well, perhaps frankness is best—he is dead.”

“Robert Gleason!” Phyllis turned as pale as her brother, but preserved her calm. “Tell me—tell me all about it.”

She, too, placed her little hand on a chair, as if the grip of something solid helped, and turned her anxious eyes to Prescott.