"How strange!" exclaimed Dora; and then she read the advertisement to her husband, who was sitting in an opposite corner, with closed eyes, as if half-asleep.
"I beg your pardon, Julian. I did not see that you were asleep."
"I was only dozing. Léonie Lemarque! that was the name of the girl who was killed, was it not? Then no doubt the advertisement is put in by Heathcote. The reference to Distin indicates as much."
"He must have made some further discovery about that unfortunate girl," said Dora thoughtfully. "He must have found out the date of her arrival in London, and that she came to meet some particular person. Do you think it was that person who killed her, Julian?"
"My dear Dora, how can I think about a business of which I know absolutely nothing? For anything we know, the girl's death may have been purely accidental, and this person who was to have met her at the station may be a figment of Heathcote's fancy, and this advertisement only a feeler thrown out in the hope of obtaining information from some unknown source. Why any of you should trouble yourselves to solve this mystery is more than I can understand."
"Why, Julian, did not you yourself send for Mr. Distin? did you not say that as a magistrate it was your duty--"
"To do all I could to further the ends of justice. Most assuredly, Dora. But having engaged the assistance of the cleverest criminal lawyer in England, and he having failed to fathom the mystery, I had no more to do. I had done my duty, and I was content to let the matter rest."
"So would I have been, if people had not suspected Bothwell. I could have no peace while there was such a cloud upon my cousin's reputation."
"That shows how narrow a view even the cleverest and most large-minded of women can take of this big world. Surely it can matter to no man living what a handful of people in a little country town may choose to think about him."
"Bothwell has to spend his life among those people."
"Well, you have had your own way in the matter, my dear Dora; and if you will only allow me to forget all about it, I am content that you and Heathcote should grope for ever in the labyrinth of that girl's antecedents. A lady's-maid or a nursery-governess, I suppose, who came to England to seek her fortune."