夜雨聆风None of the more obvious qualities. A good brain, yes, but women seldomfall for brains alone. I reflected with dismay that Judith, owing to the cir-cumstances of her job, practically never came into contact with othermen. She had no opportunity of sizing up various attractive men. Com-pared with the gruff and unattractive Franklin, Allerton’s meretriciouscharms stood out with all the force of contrast. My poor girl had no chanceof appraising him at his true worth.
Supposing that she should come seriously to lose her heart to him? Theirritability she had shown just now was a disquieting sign. Allerton, Iknew, was a real bad lot. He was possibly something more. If Allertonwere X –?
He could be. At the time that the shot was fired he had not been with Ju-dith.
But what was the motive of all these seemingly purposeless crimes?
There was, I felt sure, nothing of the madman about Allerton. He was sane– altogether sane – and utterly unprincipled.
And Judith – my Judith – was seeing altogether too much of him.
