“I’ll go up and see Miss Malakite,” he said. “You wait here, Mr. Torp. I’m sorry there are only the stairs to sit on.”

He found Christie putting coal on the grate in the parlour. She had closed the door of her father’s room. She turned to him a face flushed by her struggle with the fire, but bearing the impress of her desperate crying in some fashion he could not just then define. At any rate she appeared in full control of herself; and he felt intuitively that as far as remorse went, her reason was clear and unpoisoned.

He shut the parlour-door and hurriedly explained Mr. Torp’s mission.

“He knew I was with you. Doctor Percy must have told him. He knew you’d want some undertaker’s woman to do what’s necessary⁠ ⁠… to ‘lay him out,’ as they call it. He knew what gossips these demons are. So he just came himself. It was nice of the old chap, wasn’t it?”