"Gentlemen, on the night and at the hour Agatha Webb was killed, I was

playing with four other musicians in Mr. Sutherland's hallway. From the

place where I sat I could see what went on in the parlour and also have

a clear view of the passageway leading down to the garden door. As the

dancing was going on in the parlour I naturally looked that way most,

and this is how I came to note the eagerness with which, during the

first part of the evening, Frederick Sutherland and Amabel Page came

together in the quadrilles and country dances. Sometimes she spoke as

she passed him, and sometimes he answered, but not always, although he

never failed to show he was pleased with her or would have been if

something--perhaps it was his lack of confidence in her, sirs--had not

stood in the way of a perfect understanding. She seemed to notice that

he did not always respond, and after a while showed less inclination to

speak herself, though she did not fail to watch him, and that intently.

But she did not watch him any more closely than I did her, though I

little thought at the time what would come of my espionage. She wore a

white dress and white shoes, and was as coquettish and seductive as the

evil one makes them. Suddenly I missed her. She was in the middle of the

dance one minute and entirely out of it the next. Naturally I supposed

her to have slipped aside with Frederick Sutherland, but he was still in

sight, looking so pale and so abstracted, however, I was sure the young

miss was up to some sort of mischief. But what mischief? Watching and

waiting, but no longer confining my attention to the parlour, I

presently espied her stealing along the passageway I have mentioned,

carrying a long cloak which she rolled up and hid behind the open door.

Then she came back humming a gay little song which didn't deceive me for

a moment. 'Good!' thought I, 'she and that cloak will soon join

company.' And they did. As we were playing the Harebell mazurka I again

caught sight of her stealthy white figure in that distant doorway.

Seizing the cloak, she wrapped it round her, and with just one furtive

look backwards, seen, I warrant, by no one but myself, she vanished in

the outside dark. 'Now to note who follows her!' But nobody followed

her. This struck me as strange, and having a natural love for detective

work, in spite of my devotion to the arts, I consulted the clock at the

foot of the stairs, and noting that it was half-past eleven, scribbled

the hour on the margin of my music, with the intention of seeing how

long my lady would linger outside alone. Gentlemen, it was two hours

before I saw her face again. How she got back into the house I do not

know. It was not by the garden door, for my eye seldom left it; yet at

or near half-past one I heard her voice on the stair above me and saw

her descend and melt into the crowd as if she had not been absent from

it for more than five minutes. A half-hour later I saw her with

Frederick again. They were dancing, but not with the same spirit as

before, and even while I watched them they separated. Now where was Miss

Page during those two long hours? I think I know, and it is time I

unburdened myself to the police.

"But first I must inform you of a small discovery I made while the dance

was still in progress. Miss Page had descended the stairs, as I have

said, from what I now know to have been her own room. Her dress was, in

all respects, the same as before, with one exception--her white slippers

had been exchanged for blue ones. This seemed to show that they had been

rendered unserviceable, or at least unsightly, by the walk she had

taken. This in itself was not remarkable nor would her peculiar escapade

have made more than a temporary impression upon my curiosity if she had

not afterward shown in my presence such an unaccountable and

extraordinary interest in the murder which had taken place in the town

below during the very hours of her absence from Mr. Sutherland's ball.

This, in consideration of her sex, and her being a stranger to the

person attacked, was remarkable, and, though perhaps I had no business

to do what I did, I no sooner saw the house emptied of master and

servants than I stole softly back, and climbed the stairs to her room.

Had no good followed this intrusion, which, I am quite ready to

acknowledge, was a trifle presumptuous, I would have held my peace in

regard to it; but as I did make a discovery there, which has, as I

believe, an important bearing on this affair, I have forced myself to

mention it. The lights in the house having been left burning, I had no

difficulty in finding her apartment. I knew it by the folderols

scattered about. But I did not stop to look at them. I was on a search

for her slippers, and presently came upon them, thrust behind an old

picture in the dimmest corner of the room. Taking them down, I examined

them closely. They were not only soiled, gentlemen, but dreadfully cut

and rubbed. In short, they were ruined, and, thinking that the young

lady herself would be glad to be rid of them, I quietly put them into my

pocket, and carried them to my own home. Abel has just been for them, so

you can see them for yourselves, and if your judgment coincides with

mine, you will discover something more on them than mud."

Dr. Talbot, though he stared a little at the young man's confessed

theft, took the slippers Abel was holding out and carefully turned them

over. They were, as Sweetwater had said, grievously torn and soiled, and

showed, beside several deep earth-stains, a mark or two of a bright red

colour, quite unmistakable in its character.

"Blood," declared the coroner. "There is no doubt about it. Miss Page

was where blood was spilled last night."

"I have another proof against her," Sweetwater went on, in full

enjoyment of his prominence amongst these men, who, up to now, had

barely recognised his existence. "When, full of the suspicion that Miss

Page had had a hand in the theft which had taken place at Mrs. Webb's

house, if not in the murder that accompanied it, I hastened down to the

scene of the tragedy, I met this young woman issuing from the front

gate. She had just been making herself conspicuous by pointing out a

trail of blood on the grass plot. Dr. Talbot, who was there, will

remember how she looked on that occasion; but I doubt if he noticed how

Abel here looked, or so much as remarked the faded flower the silly boy

had stuck in his buttonhole."

"--me if I did!" ejaculated the coroner.

"Yet that flower has a very important bearing on this case. He had found

it, as he will tell you, on the floor near Batsy's skirts, and as soon

as I saw it in his coat, I bade him take it out and keep it, for,

gentlemen, it was a very uncommon flower, the like of which can only be

found in this town in Mr. Sutherland's conservatory. I remember seeing

such a one in Miss Page's hair, early in the evening. Have you that

flower about you, Abel?"

Abel had, and being filled with importance too, showed it to the doctor

and to Mr. Fenton. It was withered and faded in hue, but it was

unmistakably an orchid of the rarest description.

"It was lying near Batsy," explained Abel. "I drew Mr. Fenton's

attention to it at the time, but he scarcely noticed it."

"I will make up for my indifference now," said that gentleman.

"I should have been shown that flower," put in Knapp.

"So you should," acknowledged Sweetwater, "but when the detective

instinct is aroused it is hard for a man to be just to his rivals;

besides, I was otherwise occupied. I had Miss Page to watch. Happily for

me, you had decided that she should not be allowed to leave town till

after the inquest, and so my task became easy. This whole day I have

spent in sight of Mr. Sutherland's house, and at nightfall I was

rewarded by detecting her end a prolonged walk in the garden by a

hurried dash into the woods opposite. I followed her and noted carefully

all that she did. As she had just seen Frederick Sutherland and Miss

Halliday disappear up the road together, she probably felt free to do as

she liked, for she walked very directly to the old tree we have just

come from, and kneeling down beside it pulled from the hole underneath

something which rattled in her hand with that peculiar sound we

associate with fresh bank-notes. I had approached her as near as I

dared, and was peering around a tree trunk, when she stooped down again

and plunged both hands into the hole. She remained in this position so

long that I did not know what to make of it. But she rose at last and

turned toward home, laughing to herself in a wicked but pleased way that

did not tend to make me think any more of her. The moon was shining very

brightly by this time and I could readily perceive every detail of her

person. She held her hands out before her and shook them more than once

as she trod by me, so I was sure there was nothing in them, and this is

why I was so confident we should find the money still in the hole.

"When I saw her enter the house, I set out to find you, but the

court-house room was empty, and it was a long time before I learned

where to look for you. But at last a fellow at Brighton's corner said he

saw four men go by on their way to Zabel's cottage, and on the chance of

finding you amongst them, I turned down here. The shock you gave me in

announcing that you had discovered the murderer of Agatha Webb knocked

me over for a moment, but now I hope you realise, as I do, that this

wretched man could never have had an active hand in her death,

notwithstanding the fact that one of the stolen bills has been found in

his possession. For, and here is my great point, the proof is not

wanting that Miss Page visited this house as well as Mrs. Webb's during

her famous escapade; or at least stood under the window beneath which I

have just been searching. A footprint can be seen there, sirs, a very

plain footprint, and if Dr. Talbot will take the trouble to compare it

with the slipper he holds in his hand, he will find it to have been made

by the foot that wore that slipper."

The coroner, with a quick glance from the slipper in his hand up to

Sweetwater's eager face, showed a decided disposition to make the

experiment thus suggested. But Mr. Fenton, whose mind was full of the

Zabel tragedy, interrupted them with the question:

"But how do you explain by this hypothesis the fact of James Zabel

trying to pass one of the twenty-dollar bills stolen from Mrs. Webb's

cupboard? Do you consider Miss Page generous enough to give him that

money?"

"You ask ME that, Mr. Fenton. Do you wish to know what _I_ think of the

connection between these two great tragedies?"

"Yes; you have earned a voice in this matter; speak, Sweetwater."

"Well, then, I think Miss Page has made an effort to throw the blame of

her own misdoing on one or both of these unfortunate old men. She is

sufficiently cold-blooded and calculating to do so; and circumstances

certainly favoured her. Shall I show how?"

Mr. Fenton consulted Knapp, who nodded his head. The Boston detective

was not without curiosity as to how Sweetwater would prove the case.

"Old James Zabel had seen his brother sinking rapidly from inanition;

this their condition amply shows. He was weak himself, but John was

weaker, and in a moment of desperation he rushed out to ask a crumb of

bread from Agatha Webb, or possibly--for I have heard some whispers of

an old custom of theirs to join Philemon at his yearly merry-making and

so obtain in a natural way the bite for himself and brother he perhaps

had not the courage to ask for outright. But death had been in the Webb

cottage before him, which awful circumstance, acting on his already

weakened nerves, drove him half insane from the house and sent him

wandering blindly about the streets for a good half-hour before he

reappeared in his own house. How do I know this? From a very simple

fact. Abel here has been to inquire, among other things, if Mr. Crane

remembers the tune we were playing at the great house when he came down

the main street from visiting old widow Walker. Fortunately he does, for

the trip, trip, trip in it struck his fancy, and he has found himself

humming it over more than once since. Well, that waltz was played by us

at a quarter after midnight, which fixes the time of the encounter at

Mrs. Webb's gateway pretty accurately. But, as you will soon see, it was

ten minutes to one before James Zabel knocked at Loton's door. How do I

know this? By the same method of reasoning by which I determined the

time of Mr. Crane's encounter. Mrs. Loton was greatly pleased with the

music played that night, and had all her windows open in order to hear

it, and she says we were playing 'Money Musk' when that knocking came to

disturb her. Now, gentlemen, we played 'Money Musk' just before we were

called out to supper, and as we went to supper promptly at one, you can

see just how my calculation was made. Thirty-five minutes, then, passed

between the moment James Zabel was seen rushing from Mrs. Webb's gateway

and that in which he appeared at Loton's bakery, demanding a loaf of

bread, and offering in exchange one of the bills which had been stolen

from the murdered woman's drawer. Thirty-five minutes! And he and his

brother were starving. Does it look, then, as if that money was in his

possession when he left Mrs. Webb's house? Would any man who felt the

pangs of hunger as he did, or who saw a brother perishing for food

before his eyes, allow thirty-five minutes to elapse before he made use

of the money that rightfully or wrongfully had come into his hand? No;

and so I say that he did not have it when Mr. Crane met him. That,

instead of committing crime to obtain it, he found it in his own home,

lying on his table, when, after his frenzied absence, he returned to

tell his dreadful news to the brother he had left behind him. But how

did it come there? you ask. Gentlemen, remember the footprints under the

window. Amabel Page brought it. Having seen or perhaps met this old man

roaming in or near the Webb cottage during the time she was there

herself, she conceived the plan of throwing upon him the onus of the

crime she had herself committed, and with a slyness to be expected from

one so crafty, stole up to his home, made a hole in the shade hanging

over an open window, looked into the room where John sat, saw that he

was there alone and asleep, and, creeping in by the front door, laid on

the table beside him the twenty-dollar bill and the bloody dagger with

which she had just slain Agatha Webb. Then she stole out again, and in

twenty minutes more was leading the dance in Mr. Sutherland's parlour."

"Well reasoned!" murmured Abel, expecting the others to echo him. But,

though Mr. Fenton and Dr. Talbot looked almost convinced, they said

nothing, while Knapp, of course, was quiet as an oyster.

Sweetwater, with an easy smile calculated to hide his disappointment,

went on as if perfectly satisfied.

"Meanwhile John awakes, sees the dagger, and thinks to end his misery

with it, but finds himself too feeble. The cut in his vest, the dent in

the floor, prove this, but if you call for further proof, a little fact,

which some, if not all, of you seem to have overlooked, will amply

satisfy you that this one at least of my conclusions is correct. Open

the Bible, Abel; open it, not to shake it for what will never fall from

between its leaves, but to find in the Bible itself the lines I have

declared to you he wrote as a dying legacy with that tightly clutched

pencil. Have you found them?"

"No," was Abel's perplexed retort; "I cannot see any sign of writing on

flyleaf or margin."

"Are those the only blank places in the sacred book? Search the leaves

devoted to the family record. Now! what do you find there?"

Knapp, who was losing some of his indifference, drew nearer and read for

himself the scrawl which now appeared to every eye on the discoloured

page which Abel here turned uppermost.

"Almost illegible," he said; "one can just make out these words:

'Forgive me, James--tried to use dagger--found lying--but hand

wouldn't--dying without--don't grieve--true men--haven't disgraced

ourselves--God bless--' That is all."

"The effort must have overcome him," resumed Sweetwater in a voice from

which he carefully excluded all signs of secret triumph, "and when James

returned, as he did a few minutes later, he was evidently unable to ask

questions, even if John was in a condition to answer them. But the

fallen dagger told its own story, for James picked it up and put it back

on the table, and it was at this minute he saw, what John had not, the

twenty-dollar bill lying there with its promise of life and comfort.

Hope revives; he catches up the bill, flies down to Loton's, procures a

loaf of bread, and comes frantically back, gnawing it as he runs; for

his own hunger is more than he can endure. Re-entering his brother's

presence, he rushes forward with the bread. But the relief has come too

late; John has died in his absence; and James, dizzy with the shock,

reels back and succumbs to his own misery. Gentlemen, have you anything

to say in contradiction to these various suppositions?"

For a moment Dr. Talbot, Mr. Fenton, and even Knapp stood silent; then

the last remarked, with pardonable dryness:

"All this is ingenious, but, unfortunately, it is up set by a little

fact which you yourself have overlooked. Have you examined attentively

the dagger of which you have so often spoken, Mr. Sweetwater?"

"Not as I would like to, but I noticed it had blood on its edge, and was

of the shape and size necessary to inflict the wound from which Mrs.

Webb died."

"Very good, but there is something else of interest to be observed on

it. Fetch it, Abel."

Abel, hurrying from the room, soon brought back the weapon in question.

Sweetwater, with a vague sense of disappointment disturbing him, took it

eagerly and studied it very closely. But he only shook his head.

"Bring it nearer to the light," suggested Knapp, "and examine the little

scroll near the top of the handle."

Sweetwater did so, and at once changed colour. In the midst of the

scroll were two very small but yet perfectly distinct letters; they were

J. Z.

"How did Amabel Page come by a dagger marked with the Zabel initials?"

questioned Knapp. "Do you think her foresight went so far as to provide

herself with a dagger ostensibly belonging to one of these brothers? And

then, have you forgotten that when Mr. Crane met the old man at Mrs.

Webb's gateway he saw in his hand something that glistened? Now what was

that, if not this dagger?"

Sweetwater was more disturbed than he cared to acknowledge.

"That just shows my lack of experience," he grumbled. "I thought I had

turned this subject so thoroughly over in my mind that no one could

bring an objection against it."

Knapp shook his head and smiled. "Young enthusiasts like yourself are

great at forming theories which well-seasoned men like myself must

regard as fantastical. However," he went on, "there is no doubt that

Miss Page was a witness to, even if she has not profited by, the murder

we have been considering. But, with this palpable proof of the Zabels'

direct connection with the affair, I would not recommend her arrest as

yet."

"She should be under surveillance, though," intimated the coroner.

"Most certainly," acquiesced Knapp.

As for Sweetwater, he remained silent till the opportunity came for him

to whisper apart to Dr. Talbot, when he said:

"For all the palpable proof of which Mr. Knapp speaks--the J. Z. on the

dagger, and the possibility of this being the object he was seen

carrying out of Philemon Webb's gate--I maintain that this old man in

his moribund condition never struck the blow that killed Agatha Webb. He

hadn't strength enough, even if his lifelong love for her had not been

sufficient to prevent him."

The coroner looked thoughtful.

"You are right," said he; "he hadn't strength enough. But don't expend

too much energy in talk. Wait and see what a few direct questions will

elicit from Miss Page."

XVIII

SOME LEADING QUESTIONS

Frederick rose early. He had slept but little. The words he had

overheard at the end of the lot the night before were still ringing in

his ears. Going down the back stairs, in his anxiety to avoid Amabel, he

came upon one of the stablemen.

"Been to the village this morning?" he asked.

"No, sir, but Lem has. There's great news there. I wonder if anyone has

told Mr. Sutherland."

"What news, Jake? I don't think my father is up yet."

"Why, sir, there were two more deaths in town last night--the brothers

Zabel; and folks do say (Lem heard it a dozen times between the grocery

and the fish market) that it was one of these old men who killed Mrs.

Webb. The dagger has been found in their house, and most of the money.

Why, sir, what's the matter? Are you sick?"

Frederick made an effort and stood upright. He had nearly fallen.

"No; that is, I am not quite myself. So many horrors, Jake. What did

they die of? You say they are both dead--both?"

"Yes, sir, and it's dreadful to think of, but it was hunger, sir. Bread

came too late. Both men are mere skeletons to look at. They have kept

themselves close for weeks now, and nobody knew how bad off they were. I

don't wonder it upset you, sir. We all feel it a bit, and I just dread

to tell Mr. Sutherland."

Frederick staggered away. He had never in his life been so near mental

and physical collapse. At the threshold of the sitting-room door he met

his father. Mr. Sutherland was looking both troubled and anxious; more

so, Frederick thought, than when he signed the check for him on the

previous night. As their eyes met, both showed embarrassment, but

Frederick, whose nerves had been highly strung by what he had just

heard, soon controlled himself, and surveying his father with forced

calmness, began:

"This is dreadful news, sir."

But his father, intent on his own thought, hurriedly interrupted him.

"You told me yesterday that everything was broken off between you and

Miss Page. Yet I saw you reenter the house together last night a little

while after I gave you the money you asked for."

"I know, and it must have had a bad appearance. I entreat you, however,

to believe that this meeting between Miss Page and myself was against my

wish, and that the relations between us have not been affected by

anything that passed between us."

"I am glad to hear it, my son. You could not do worse by yourself than

to return to your old devotion."

"I agree with you, sir." And then, because he could not help it,

Frederick inquired if he had heard the news.

Mr. Sutherland, evidently startled, asked what news; to which Frederick

replied:

"The news about the Zabels. They are both dead, sir,--dead from hunger.

Can you imagine it!"

This was something so different from what his father had expected to

hear, that he did not take it in at first. When he did, his surprise and

grief were even greater than Frederick had anticipated. Seeing him so

affected, Frederick, who thought that the whole truth would be no harder

to bear than the half, added the suspicion which had been attached to

the younger one's name, and then stood back, scarcely daring to be a

witness to the outraged feelings which such a communication could not

fail to awaken in one of his father's temperament.

But though he thus escaped the shocked look which crossed his father's

countenance, he could not fail to hear the indignant exclamation which

burst from his lips, nor help perceiving that it would take more than

the most complete circumstantial evidence to convince his father of the

guilt of men he had known and respected for so many years.

For some reason Frederick experienced great relief at this, and was

bracing himself to meet the fire of questions which his statement must

necessarily call forth, when the sound of approaching steps drew the

attention of both towards a party of men coming up the hillside.

Among them was Mr. Courtney, Prosecuting Attorney for the district, and

as Mr. Sutherland recognised him he sprang forward, saying, "There's

Courtney; he will explain this."

Frederick followed, anxious and bewildered, and soon had the doubtful

pleasure of seeing his father enter his study in company with the four

men considered to be most interested in the elucidation of the Webb

mystery.

As he was lingering in an undecided mood in the small passageway leading

up-stairs he felt the pressure of a finger on his shoulder. Looking up,

he met the eyes of Amabel, who was leaning toward him over the

banisters. She was smiling, and, though her face was not without

evidences of physical languor, there was a charm about her person which

would have been sufficiently enthralling to him twenty-four hours

before, but which now caused him such a physical repulsion that he

started back in the effort to rid his shoulder from her disturbing

touch.

She frowned. It was an instantaneous expression of displeasure which was

soon lost in one of her gurgling laughs.

"Is my touch so burdensome?" she demanded. "If the pressure of one

finger is so unbearable to your sensitive nerves, how will you relish

the weight of my whole hand?"

There was a fierceness in her tone, a purpose in her look, that for the

first time in his struggle with her revealed the full depth of her dark

nature. Shrinking from her appalled, he put up his hand in protest, at

which she changed again in a twinkling, and with a cautious gesture

toward the room into which Mr. Sutherland and his friends had

disappeared, she whispered significantly:

"We may not have another chance to confer together. Understand, then,

that it will not be necessary for you to tell me, in so many words, that

you are ready to link your fortunes to mine; the taking off of the ring

you wear and your slow putting of it on again, in my presence, will be

understood by me as a token that you have reconsidered your present

attitude and desire my silence and--myself."

Frederick could not repress a shudder.

For an instant he was tempted to succumb on the spot and have the long

agony over. Then his horror of the woman rose to such a pitch that he

uttered an execration, and, turning away from her face, which was

rapidly growing loathsome to him, he ran out of the passageway into the

garden, seeing as he ran a persistent vision of himself pulling off the

ring and putting it back again, under the spell of a look he rebelled

against even while he yielded to its influence.

"I will not wear a ring, I will not subject myself to the possibility of

obeying her behest under a sudden stress of fear or fascination," he

exclaimed, pausing by the well-curb and looking over it at his

reflection in the water beneath. "If I drop it here I at least lose the

horror of doing what she suggests, under some involuntary impulse." But

the thought that the mere absence of the ring from his finger would not

stand in the way of his going through the motions to which she had just

given such significance, deterred him from the sacrifice of a valuable

family jewel, and he left the spot with an air of frenzy such as a man

displays when he feels himself on the verge of a doom he can neither

meet nor avert.

As he re-entered the house, he felt himself enveloped in the atmosphere

of a coming crisis. He could hear voices in the upper hall, and amongst

them he caught the accents of her he had learned so lately to fear.

Impelled by something deeper than curiosity and more potent even than

dread, he hastened toward the stairs. When half-way up, he caught sight

of Amabel. She was leaning back against the balustrade that ran across

the upper hall, with her hands gripping the rail on either side of her

and her face turned toward the five men who had evidently issued from

Mr. Sutherland's study to interview her.

As her back was to Frederick he could not judge of the expression of

that face save by the effect it had upon the different men confronting

her. But to see them was enough. From their looks he could perceive that

this young girl was in one of her baffling moods, and that from his

father down, not one of the men present knew what to make of her.

At the sound his feet made, a relaxation took place in her body and she

lost something of the defiant attitude she had before maintained.

Presently he heard her voice:

"I am willing to answer any questions you may choose to put to me here;

but I cannot consent to shut myself in with you in that small study; I

should suffocate."

Frederick could perceive the looks which passed between the five men

assembled before her, and was astonished to note that the insignificant

fellow they called Sweetwater was the first to answer.

"Very well," said he; "if you enjoy the publicity of the open hall, no

one here will object. Is not that so, gentlemen?"

Her two little fingers, which were turned towards Frederick, ran up and

down the rail, making a peculiar rasping noise, which for a moment was

the only sound to be heard. Then Mr. Courtney said:

"How came you to have the handling of the money taken from Agatha Webb's

private drawer?"

It was a startling question, but it seemed to affect Amabel less than it

did Frederick. It made him start, but she only turned her head a trifle

aside, so that the peculiar smile with which she prepared to answer

could be seen by anyone standing below.

"Suppose you ask something less leading than that, to begin with," she

suggested, in her high, unmusical voice. "From the searching nature of

this inquiry, you evidently believe I have information of an important

character to give you concerning Mrs. Webb's unhappy death. Ask me about

that; the other question I will answer later."

The aplomb with which this was said, mixed as it was with a feminine

allurement of more than ordinary subtlety, made Mr. Sutherland frown and

Dr. Talbot look perplexed, but it did not embarrass Mr. Courtney, who

made haste to respond in his dryest accents:

"Very well, I am not particular as to what you answer first. A flower

worn by you at the dance was found near Batsy's skirts, before she was

lifted up that morning. Can you explain this, or, rather, will you?"

"You are not obliged to, you know," put in Mr. Sutherland, with his

inexorable sense of justice. "Still, if you would, it might rob these

gentlemen of suspicions you certainly cannot wish them to entertain."

"What I say," she remarked slowly, "will be as true to the facts as if I

stood here on my oath. I can explain how a flower from my hair came to

be in Mrs. Webb's house, but not how it came to be found under Batsy's

feet. That someone else must clear up." Her little finger, lifted from

the rail, pointed toward Frederick, but no one saw this, unless it was

that gentleman himself. "I wore a purple orchid in my hair that night,

and there would be nothing strange in its being afterward picked up in

Mrs. Webb's house, because I was in that house at or near the time she

was murdered."

"You in that house?"

"Yes, as far as the ground floor; no farther." Here the little finger

stopped pointing. "I am ready to tell you about it, sirs, and only

regret I have delayed doing so so long, but I wished to be sure it was

necessary. Your presence here and your first question show that it is."

There was suavity in her tone now, not unmixed with candour. Sweetwater

did not seem to relish this, for he moved uneasily and lost a shade of

his self-satisfied attitude. He had still to be made acquainted with all

the ins and outs of this woman's remarkable nature.

"We are waiting," suggested Dr. Talbot.

She turned to face this new speaker, and Frederick was relieved from the

sight of her tantalising smile.

"I will tell my story simply," said she, "with the simple suggestion

that you believe me; otherwise you will make a mistake. While I was

resting from a dance the other night, I heard two of the young people

talking about the Zabels. One of them was laughing at the old men, and

the other was trying to relate some half-forgotten story of early love

which had been the cause, she thought, of their strange and melancholy

lives. I was listening to them, but I did not take in much of what they

were saying till I heard behind me an irascible voice exclaiming: 'You

laugh, do you? I wonder if you would laugh so easily if you knew that

these two poor old men haven't had a decent meal in a fortnight?' I

didn't know the speaker, but I was thrilled by his words. Not had a good

meal, these men, for a fortnight! I felt as if personally guilty of

their suffering, and, happening to raise my eyes at this minute and

seeing through an open door the bountiful refreshments prepared for us

in the supper room, I felt guiltier than ever. Suddenly I took a

resolution. It was a queer one, and may serve to show you some of the

oddities of my nature. Though I was engaged for the next dance, and

though I was dressed in the flimsy garments suitable to the occasion, I

decided to leave the ball and carry some sandwiches down to these old

men. Procuring a bit of paper, I made up a bundle and stole out of the

house without having said a word to anybody of my intention. Not wishing

to be seen, I went out by the garden door, which is at the end of the

dark hall--"

"Just as the band was playing the Harebell mazurka," interpolated

Sweetwater.

Startled for the first time from her careless composure by an

interruption of which it was impossible for her at that time to measure

either the motive or the meaning, she ceased to play with her fingers on

the baluster rail and let her eyes rest for a moment on the man who had

thus spoken, as if she hesitated between her desire to annihilate him

for his impertinence and a fear of the cold hate she saw actuating his

every word and look. Then she went on, as if no one had spoken:

"I ran down the hill recklessly. I was bent on my errand and not at all

afraid of the dark. When I reached that part of the road where the

streets branch off, I heard footsteps in front of me. I had overtaken

someone. Slackening my pace, so that I should not pass this person, whom

I instinctively knew to be a man, I followed him till I came to a high

board fence. It was that surrounding Agatha Webb's house, and when I saw

it I could not help connecting the rather stealthy gait of the man in

front of me with a story I had lately heard of the large sum of money

she was known to keep in her house. Whether this was before or after

this person disappeared round the corner I cannot say, but no sooner had

I become certain that he was bent upon entering this house than my

impulse to follow him became greater than my precaution, and turning

aside from the direct path to the Zabels', I hurried down High Street

just in time to see the man enter Mrs. Webb's front gateway.

"It was a late hour for visiting, but as the house had lights in both

its lower and upper stories, I should by good rights have taken it for

granted that he was an expected guest and gone on my way to the Zabels'.

But I did not. The softness with which this person stepped and the

skulking way in which he hesitated at the front gate aroused my worst

fears, and after he had opened that gate and slid in, I was so pursued

by the idea that he was there for no good that I stepped inside the gate

myself and took my stand in the deep shadow cast by the old pear tree on

the right-hand side of the walk. Did anyone speak?"

There was a unanimous denial from the five gentlemen before her, yet she

did not look satisfied.

"I thought I heard someone make a remark," she repeated, and paused

again for a half-minute, during which her smile was a study, it was so

cold and in such startling contrast to the vivid glances she threw

everywhere except behind her on the landing where Frederick stood

listening to her every word.

"We are very much interested," remarked Mr. Courtney. "Pray, go on."

Drawing her left hand from the balustrade where it had rested, she

looked at one of her fingers with an odd backward gesture.

"I will," she said, and her tone was hard and threatening. "Five

minutes, no longer, passed, when I was startled by a loud and terrible

cry from the house, and looking up at the second-story window from which

the sound proceeded, I saw a woman's figure hanging out in a seemingly

pulseless condition. Too terrified to move, I clung trembling to the

tree, hearing and not hearing the shouts and laughter of a dozen or more

men, who at that minute passed by the corner on their way to the

wharves. I was dazed, I was choking, and only came to myself when,

sooner or later, I do not know how soon or how late, a fresh horror

happened. The woman whom I had just seen fall almost from the window was

a serving woman, but when I heard another scream I knew that the

mistress of the house was being attacked, and rivetting my eyes on those

windows, I beheld the shade of one of them thrown back and a hand

appear, flinging out something which fell in the grass on the opposite

side of the lawn. Then the shade fell again, and hearing nothing

further, I ran to where the object flung out had fallen, and feeling for

it, found and picked up an old-fashioned dagger, dripping with blood.

Horrified beyond all expression, I dropped the weapon and retreated into

my former place of concealment.

"But I was not satisfied to remain there. A curiosity, a determination

even, to see the man who had committed this dastardly deed, attacked me

with such force that I was induced to leave my hiding-place and even to

enter the house where in all probability he was counting the gains he

had just obtained at the price of so much precious blood. The door,

which he had not perfectly closed behind him, seemed to invite me in,

and before I had realised my own temerity, I was standing in the hall of

this ill-fated house."

The interest, which up to this moment had been breathless, now expressed

itself in hurried ejaculations and broken words; and Mr. Sutherland, who

had listened like one in a dream, exclaimed eagerly, and in a tone which

proved that he, for the moment at least, believed this more than

improbable tale:

"Then you can tell us if Philemon was in the little room at the moment

when you entered the house?"

As everyone there present realised the importance of this question, a

general movement took place and each and all drew nearer as she met

their eyes and answered placidly:

"Yes; Mr. Webb was sitting in a chair asleep. He was the only person I

saw."

"Oh, I know he never committed this crime," gasped his old friend, in a

relief so great that one and all seemed to share it.

"Now I have courage for the rest. Go on, Miss Page."

But Miss Page paused again to look at her finger, and give that sideways

toss to her head that seemed so uncalled for by the situation to any who

did not know of the compact between herself and the listening man below.

"I hate to go back to that moment," said she; "for when I saw the

candles burning on the table, and the husband of the woman who at that

very instant was possibly breathing her last breath in the room

overhead, sitting there in unconscious apathy, I felt something rise in

my throat that made me deathly sick for a moment. Then I went right in

where he was, and was about to shake his arm and wake him, when I

detected a spot of blood on my finger from the dagger I had handled.

That gave me another turn, and led me to wipe off my finger on his

sleeve."

"It's a pity you did not wipe off your slippers too," murmured

Sweetwater.

Again she looked at him, again her eyes opened in terror upon the face

of this man, once so plain and insignificant in her eyes, but now so

filled with menace she inwardly quaked before it, for all her apparent

scorn.

"Slippers," she murmured.

"Did not your feet as well as your hands pass through the blood on the

grass?"

She disdained to answer him.

"I have accounted for the blood on my hand," she said, not looking at

him, but at Mr. Courtney. "If there is any on my slippers it can be

accounted for in the same way." And she rapidly resumed her narrative.

"I had no sooner made my little finger clean I never thought of anyone

suspecting the old gentleman when I heard steps on the stairs and knew

that the murderer was coming down, and in another instant would pass the

open door before which I stood.

"Though I had been courageous enough up to that minute, I was seized by

a sudden panic at the prospect of meeting face to face one whose hands

were perhaps dripping with the blood of his victim. To confront him

there and then might mean death to me, and I did not want to die, but to

live, for I am young, sirs, and not without a prospect of happiness

before me. So I sprang back, and seeing no other place of concealment in

the whole bare room, crouched down in the shadow of the man you call

Philemon. For one, two minutes, I knelt there in a state of mortal

terror, while the feet descended, paused, started to enter the room

where I was, hesitated, turned, and finally left the house."

"Miss Page, wait, wait," put in the coroner. "You saw him; you can tell

who this man was?"

The eagerness of this appeal seemed to excite her. A slight colour

appeared in her cheeks and she took a step forward, but before the words

for which they so anxiously waited could leave her lips, she gave a

start and drew back with, an ejaculation which left a more or less

sinister echo in the ears of all who heard it.

Frederick had just shown himself at the top of the staircase.

"Good-morning, gentlemen," said he, advancing into their midst with an

air whose unexpected manliness disguised his inward agitation. "The few

words I have just heard Miss Page say interest me so much, I find it

impossible not to join you."

Amabel, upon whose lips a faint complacent smile had appeared as he

stepped by her, glanced up at these words in secret astonishment at the

indifference they showed, and then dropped her eyes to his hands with an

intent gaze which seemed to affect him unpleasantly, for he thrust them

immediately behind him, though he did not lower his head or lose his air

of determination.

"Is my presence here undesirable?" he inquired, with a glance towards

his father.

Sweetwater looked as if he thought it was, but he did not presume to say

anything, and the others being too interested in the developments of

Miss Page's story to waste any time on lesser matters, Frederick

remained, greatly to Miss Page's evident satisfaction.

"Did you see this man's face?" Mr. Courtney now broke in, in urgent

inquiry.

Her answer came slowly, after another long look in Frederick's

direction.

"No, I did not dare to make the effort. I was obliged to crouch too

close to the floor. I simply heard his footsteps."

"See, now!" muttered Sweetwater, but in so low a tone she did not hear

him. "She condemns herself. There isn't a woman living who would fail to

look up under such circumstances, even at the risk of her life."

Knapp seemed to agree with him, but Mr. Courtney, following his one

idea, pressed his former question, saying:

"Was it an old man's step?"

"It was not an agile one."

"And you did not catch the least glimpse of the man's face or figure?"

"Not a glimpse."

"So you are in no position to identify him?"

"If by any chance I should hear those same footsteps coming down a

flight of stairs, I think I should be able to recognise them," she

allowed, in the sweetest tones at her command.

"She knows it is too late for her to hear those of the two dead Zabels,"

growled the man from Boston.

"We are no nearer the solution of this mystery than we were in the

beginning," remarked the coroner.

"Gentlemen, I have not yet finished my story," intimated Amabel,

sweetly. "Perhaps what I have yet to tell may give you some clew to the

identity of this man."

"Ah, yes; go on, go on. You have not yet explained how you came to be in

possession of Agatha's money."

"Just so," she answered, with another quick look at Frederick, the last

she gave him for some time. "As soon, then, as I dared, I ran out of the

house into the yard. The moon, which had been under a cloud, was now

shining brightly, and by its light I saw that the space before me was

empty and that I might venture to enter the street. But before doing so

I looked about for the dagger I had thrown from me before going in, but

I could not find it. It had been picked up by the fugitive and carried

away. Annoyed at the cowardice which had led me to lose such a valuable

piece of evidence through a purely womanish emotion, I was about to

leave the yard, when my eyes fell on the little bundle of sandwiches

which I had brought down from the hill and which I had let fall under

the pear tree, at the first scream I had heard from the house. It had

burst open and two or three of the sandwiches lay broken on the ground.

But those that were intact I picked up, and being more than ever anxious

to cover up by some ostensible errand my absence from the party, I

rushed away toward the lonely road where these brothers lived, meaning

to leave such fragments as remained on the old doorstep, beyond which I

had been told such suffering existed.

"It was now late, very late, for a girl like myself to be out, but,

under the excitement of what I had just seen and heard, I became

oblivious to fear, and rushed into those dismal shadows as into

transparent daylight. Perhaps the shouts and stray sounds of laughter

that came up from the wharves where a ship was getting under way gave me

a certain sense of companionship. Perhaps--but it is folly for me to

dilate upon my feelings; it is my errand you are interested in, and what

happened when I approached the Zabels' dreary dwelling."

The look with which she paused, ostensibly to take breath, but in

reality to weigh and criticise the looks of those about her, was one of

those wholly indescribable ones with which she was accustomed to control

the judgment of men who allowed themselves to watch too closely the

ever-changing expression of her weird yet charming face. But it fell

upon men steeled against her fascinations, and realising her inability

to move them, she proceeded with her story before even the most anxious

of her hearers could request her to do so.

"I had come along the road very quietly," said she, "for my feet were

lightly shod, and the moonlight was too bright for me to make a misstep.

But as I cleared the trees and came into the open place where the house

stands I stumbled with surprise at seeing a figure crouching on the

doorstep I had anticipated finding as empty as the road. It was an old

man's figure, and as I paused in my embarrassment he slowly and with

great feebleness rose to his feet and began to grope about for the door.

As he did so, I heard a sharp tinkling sound, as of something metallic

falling on the doorstone, and, taking a quick step forward, I looked

over his shoulder and espied in the moonlight at his feet a dagger so

like the one I had lately handled in Mrs. Webb's yard that I was

overwhelmed with astonishment, and surveyed the aged and feeble form of

the man who had dropped it with a sensation difficult to describe. The

next moment he was stooping for the weapon, with a startled air that has

impressed itself distinctly upon my memory, and when, after many feeble

attempts, he succeeded in grasping it, he vanished into the house so

suddenly that I could not be sure whether or not he had seen me standing

there.

"All this was more than surprising to me, for I had never thought of

associating an old man with this crime. Indeed, I was so astonished to

find him in possession of this weapon that I forgot all about my errand

and only wondered how I could see and know more. Fearing detection, I

slid in amongst the bushes and soon found myself under one of the

windows. The shade was down and I was about to push it aside when I

heard someone moving about inside and stopped. But I could not restrain

my curiosity, so pulling a hairpin from my hair, I worked a little hole

in the shade and through this I looked into a room brightly illumined by

the moon which shone in through an adjoining window. And what did I see

there?" Her eye turned on Frederick. His right hand had stolen toward

his left, but it paused under her look and remained motionless. "Only an

old man sitting at a table and--" Why did she pause, and why did she

cover up that pause with a wholly inconsequential sentence? Perhaps

Frederick could have told, Frederick, whose hand had now fallen at his

side. But Frederick volunteered nothing, and no one, not even

Sweetwater, guessed all that lay beyond that AND which was left hovering

in the air to be finished--- when? Alas! had she not set the day and the

hour?

What she did say was in seeming explanation of her previous sentence.

"It was not the same old man I had seen on the doorstep, and while I was

looking at him I became aware of someone leaving the house and passing

me on the road up-hill. Of course this ended my interest in what went on

within, and turning as quickly as I could I hurried into the road and

followed the shadow I could just perceive disappearing in the woods

above me. I was bound, gentlemen, as you see, to follow out my adventure

to the end. But my task now became very difficult, for the moon was high

and shone down upon the road so distinctly that I could not follow the

person before me as closely as I wished without running the risk of

being discovered by him. I therefore trusted more to my ear than to my

eye, and as long as I could hear his steps in front of me I was

satisfied. But presently, as we turned up this very hill, I ceased to

hear these steps and so became confident that he had taken to the woods.

I was so sure of this that I did not hesitate to enter them myself, and,

knowing the paths well, as I have every opportunity of doing, living, as

we do, directly opposite this forest, I easily found my way to the

little clearing that I have reason to think you gentlemen have since

become acquainted with. But though from the sounds I heard I was assured

that the person I was following was not far in advance of me, I did not

dare to enter this brilliantly illumined space, especially as there was

every indication of this person having completed whatever task he had

set for himself. Indeed, I was sure that I heard his steps coming back.

So, for the second time, I crouched down in the darkest place I could

find and let this mysterious person pass me. When he had quite

disappeared, I made my own retreat, for it was late, and I was afraid of

being missed at the ball. But later, or rather the next day, I recrossed

the road and began a search for the money which I was confident had been

left in the woods opposite, by the person I had been following. I found

it, and when the man here present who, though a mere fiddler, has

presumed to take a leading part in this interview, came upon me with the

bills in my hand, I was but burying deeper the ill-gotten gains I had

come upon."

"Ah, and so making them your own," quoth Sweetwater, stung by the

sarcasm in that word fiddler.

But with a suavity against which every attack fell powerless, she met

his significant look with one fully as significant, and quietly said:

"If I had wanted the money for myself I would not have risked leaving it

where the murderer could find it by digging up a few handfuls of mould

and a bunch of sodden leaves. No, I had another motive for my action, a

motive with which few, if any, of you will be willing to credit me. I

wished to save the murderer, whom I had some reason, as you see, for

thinking I knew, from the consequences of his own action."

Mr. Courtney, Dr. Talbot, and even Mr. Sutherland, who naturally

believed she referred to Zabel, and who, one and all, had a lingering

tenderness for this unfortunate old man, which not even this seeming act

of madness on his part could quite destroy, felt a species of reaction

at this, and surveyed the singular being before them with, perhaps, the

slightest shade of relenting in their severity. Sweetwater alone

betrayed restlessness, Knapp showed no feeling at all, while Frederick

stood like one petrified, and moved neither hand nor foot.

"Crime is despicable when it results from cupidity only," she went on,

with a deliberateness so hard that the more susceptible of her auditors

shuddered. "But crime that springs from some imperative and overpowering

necessity of the mind or body might well awaken sympathy, and I am not

ashamed of having been sorry for this frenzied and suffering man. Weak

and impulsive as you may consider me, I did not want him to suffer on

account of a moment's madness, as he undoubtedly would if he were ever

found with Agatha Webb's money in his possession, so I plunged it deeper

into the soil and trusted to the confusion which crime always awakens

even in the strongest mind, for him not to discover its hiding-place

till the danger connected with it was over."

"Ha! wonderful! Devilish subtle, eh? Clever, too clever!" were some of

the whispered exclamations which this curious explanation on her part

brought out. Yet only Sweetwater showed his open and entire disbelief of

the story, the others possibly remembering that for such natures as hers

there is no governing law and no commonplace interpretation.

To Sweetwater, however, this was but so much display of feminine

resource and subtlety. Though he felt he should keep still in the

presence of men so greatly his superiors, he could not resist saying:

"Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. I should never have

attributed any such motive as you mention to the young girl I saw

leaving this spot with many a backward glance at the hole from which we

afterwards extracted the large sum of money in question. But say that

this reburying of stolen funds was out of consideration for the feeble

old man you describe as having carried them there, do you not see that

by this act you can be held as an accessory after the fact?"

Her eyebrows went up and the delicate curve of her lips was not without

menace as she said:

"You hate me, Mr. Sweetwater. Do you wish me to tell these gentlemen

why?"

The flush which, notwithstanding this peculiar young man's nerve,

instantly crimsoned his features, was a surprise to Frederick. So was it

to the others, who saw in it a possible hint as to the real cause of his

persistent pursuit of this young girl, which they had hitherto ascribed

entirely to his love of justice. Slighted love makes some hearts

venomous. Could this ungainly fellow have once loved and been disdained

by this bewitching piece of unreliability?

It was a very possible assumption, though Sweetwater's blush was the

only answer he gave to her question, which nevertheless had amply served

its turn.

To fill the gap caused by his silence, Mr. Sutherland made an effort and

addressed her himself.

"Your conduct," said he, "has not been that of a strictly honourable

person. Why did you fail to give the alarm when you re-entered my house

after being witness to this double tragedy?"

Her serenity was not to be disturbed.

"I have just explained," she reminded him, "that I had sympathy for the

criminal."

"We all have sympathy for James Zabel, but--"

"I do not believe one word of this story," interposed Sweetwater, in

reckless disregard of proprieties. "A hungry, feeble old man, like

Zabel, on the verge of death, could not have found his way into these

woods. You carried the money there yourself, miss; you are the--"

"Hush!" interposed the coroner, authoritatively; "do not let us go too

fast--yet. Miss Page has an air of speaking the truth, strange and

unaccountable as it may seem. Zabel was an admirable man once, and if he

was led into theft and murder, it was not until his faculties had been

weakened by his own suffering and that of his much-loved brother."

"Thank you," was her simple reply; and for the first time every man

there thrilled at her tone. Seeing it, all the dangerous fascination of

her look and manner returned upon her with double force. "I have been

unwise," said she, "and let my sympathy run away with my judgment. Women

have impulses of this kind sometimes, and men blame them for it, till

they themselves come to the point of feeling the need of just such blind

devotion. I am sure I regret my short-sightedness now, for I have lost

esteem by it, while he--" With a wave of the hand she dismissed the

subject, and Dr. Talbot, watching her, felt a shade of his distrust

leave him, and in its place a species of admiration for the lithe,

graceful, bewitching personality before them, with her childish impulses

and womanly wit which half mystified and half imposed upon them.

Mr. Sutherland, on the contrary, was neither charmed from his antagonism

nor convinced of her honesty. There was something in this matter that

could not be explained away by her argument, and his suspicion of that

something he felt perfectly sure was shared by his son, toward whose

cold, set face he had frequently cast the most uneasy glances. He was

not ready, however, to probe into the subject more deeply, nor could he,

for the sake of Frederick, urge on to any further confession a young

woman whom his unhappy son professed to love, and in whose discretion he

had so little confidence. As for Sweetwater, he had now fully recovered

his self-possession, and bore himself with great discretion when Dr.

Talbot finally said:

"Well, gentlemen, we have got more than we expected when we came here

this morning. There remains, however, a point regarding which we have

received no explanation. Miss Page, how came that orchid, which I am

told you wore in your hair at the dance, to be found lying near the hem

of Batsy's skirts? You distinctly told us that you did not go up-stairs

when you were in Mrs. Webb's house."

"Ah, that's so!" acquiesced the Boston detective dryly. "How came that

flower on the scene of the murder?"

She smiled and seemed equal to the emergency.

"That is a mystery for us all to solve," she said quietly, frankly

meeting the eyes of her questioner.

"A mystery it is your business to solve," corrected the district

attorney. "Nothing that you have told us in support of your innocence

would, in the eyes of the law, weigh for one instant against the

complicity shown by that one piece of circumstantial evidence against

you."

Her smile carried a certain high-handed denial of this to one heart

there, at least. But her words were humble enough.

"I am aware of that," said she. Then, turning to where Sweetwater stood

lowering upon her from out his half-closed eyes, she impetuously

exclaimed: "You, sir, who, with no excuse an honourable person can

recognise, have seen fit to arrogate to yourself duties wholly out of

your province, prove yourself equal to your presumption by ferreting

out, alone and unassisted, the secret of this mystery. It can be done,

for, mark, _I_ did not carry that flower into the room where it was

found. This I am ready to assert before God and before man!"

Her hand was raised, her whole attitude spoke defiance and--hard as it

was for Sweetwater to acknowledge it--truth. He felt that he had

received a challenge, and with a quick glance at Knapp, who barely

responded by a shrug, he shifted over to the side of Dr. Talbot.

Amabel at once dropped her hand.

"May I go?" she now cried appealingly to Mr. Courtney. "I really have no

more to say, and I am tired."

"Did you see the figure of the man who brushed by you in the wood? Was

it that of the old man you saw on the doorstep?"

At this direct question Frederick quivered in spite of his dogged

self-control. But she, with her face upturned to meet the scrutiny of

the speaker, showed only a childish kind of wonder. "Why do you ask

that? Is there any doubt about its being the same?"

What an actress she was! Frederick stood appalled. He had been amazed at

the skill with which she had manipulated her story so as to keep her

promise to him, and yet leave the way open for that further confession

which would alter the whole into a denunciation of himself which he

would find it difficult, if not impossible, to meet. But this extreme

dissimulation made him lose heart. It showed her to be an antagonist of

almost illimitable resource and secret determination.

"I did not suppose there could be any doubt," she added, in such a

natural tone of surprise that Mr. Courtney dropped the subject, and Dr.

Talbot turned to Sweetwater, who for the moment seemed to have robbed

Knapp of his rightful place as the coroner's confidant.

"Shall we let her go for the present?" he whispered. "She does look

tired, poor girl."

The public challenge which Sweetwater had received made him wary, and

his reply was a guarded one:

"I do not trust her, yet there is much to confirm her story. Those

sandwiches, now. She says she dropped them in Mrs. Webb's yard under the

pear tree, and that the bag that held them burst open. Gentlemen, the

birds were so busy there on the morning after the murder that I could

not but notice them, notwithstanding my absorption in greater matters. I

remember wondering what they were all pecking at so eagerly. But how

about the flower whose presence on the scene of guilt she challenges me

to explain? And the money so deftly reburied by her? Can any explanation

make her other than accessory to a crime on whose fruits she lays her

hand in a way tending solely to concealment? No, sirs; and so I shall

not relax my vigilance over her, even if, in order to be faithful to it,

I have to suggest that a warrant be made out for her imprisonment."

"You are right," acquiesced the coroner, and turning to Miss Page, he

told her she was too valuable a witness to be lost sight of, and

requested her to prepare to accompany him into town.

She made no objection. On the contrary her cheeks dimpled, and she

turned away with alacrity towards her room. But before the door closed

on her she looked back, and, with a persuasive smile, remarked that she

had told all she knew, or thought she knew at the time. But that

perhaps, after thinking the matter carefully over, she might remember

some detail that would throw some extra light on the subject.

"Call her back!" cried Mr. Courtney. "She is withholding something. Let

us hear it all."

But Mr. Sutherland, with a side look at Frederick, persuaded the

district attorney to postpone all further examination of this artful

girl until they were alone. The anxious father had noted, what the rest

were too preoccupied to observe, that Frederick had reached the limit of

his strength and could not be trusted to preserve his composure any

longer in face of this searching examination into the conduct of a woman

from whom he had so lately detached himself.

XIX

POOR PHILEMON

The next day was the day of Agatha's funeral. She was to be buried in

Portchester, by the side of her six children, and, as the day was fine,

the whole town, as by common consent, assembled in the road along which

the humble cortege was to make its way to the spot indicated.

From the windows of farmhouses, from between the trees of the few

scattered thickets along the way, saddened and curious faces looked

forth till Sweetwater, who walked as near as he dared to the immediate

friends of the deceased, felt the impossibility of remembering them all

and gave up the task in despair.

Before one house, about a mile out of town, the procession paused, and

at a gesture from the minister everyone within sight took off their

hats, amid a hush which made almost painfully apparent the twittering of

birds and the other sounds of animate and inanimate nature, which are

inseparable from a country road. They had reached widow Jones's cottage

in which Philemon was then staying.

The front door was closed, and so were the lower windows, but in one of

the upper casements a movement was perceptible, and in another instant

there came into view a woman and man, supporting between them the

impassive form of Agatha's husband. Holding him up in plain sight of the

almost breathless throng below, the woman pointed to where his darling

lay and appeared to say something to him.

Then there was to be seen a strange sight. The old man, with his thin

white locks fluttering in the breeze, leaned forward with a smile, and

holding out his arms, cried in a faint but joyful tone: "Agatha!" Then,

as if realising for the first time that it was death he looked upon, and

that the crowd below was a funeral procession, his face altered and he

fell back with a low heartbroken moan into the arms of those who

supported him.

As his white head disappeared from sight, the procession moved on, and

from only one pair of lips went up that groan of sorrow with which every

heart seemed surcharged. One groan. From whose lips did it come?

Sweetwater endeavoured to ascertain, but was not able, nor could anyone

inform him, unless it was Mr. Sutherland, whom he dared not approach.

This gentleman was on foot like the rest, with his arm fast linked in

that of his son Frederick. He had meant to ride, for the distance was

long for men past sixty; but finding the latter resolved to walk, he had

consented to do the same rather than be separated from his son.

He had fears for Frederick--he could hardly have told why; and as the

ceremony proceeded and Agatha was solemnly laid away in the place

prepared for her, his sympathies grew upon him to such an extent that he

found it difficult to quit the young man for a moment, or even to turn

his eyes away from the face he had never seemed to know till now. But as

friends and strangers were now leaving the yard, he controlled himself,

and assuming a more natural demeanour, asked his son if he were now

ready to ride back. But, to his astonishment, Frederick replied that he

did not intend to return to Sutherlandtown at present; that he had

business in Portchester, and that he was doubtful as to when he would be

ready to return. As the old gentleman did not wish to raise a

controversy, he said nothing, but as soon as he saw Frederick disappear

up the road, he sent back the carriage he had ordered, saying that he

would return in a Portchester gig as soon as he had settled some affairs

of his own, which might and might not detain him there till evening.

Then he proceeded to a little inn, where he hired a room with windows

that looked out on the high-road. In one of these windows he sat all

day, watching for Frederick, who had gone farther up the road.

But no Frederick appeared, and with vague misgivings, for which as yet

he had no name, he left the window and set out on foot for home.

It was now dark, but a silvery gleam on the horizon gave promise of the

speedy rising of a full moon. Otherwise he would not have attempted to

walk over a road proverbially dark and dismal.

The churchyard in which they had just laid away Agatha lay in his

course. As he approached it he felt his heart fail, and stopping a

moment at the stone wall that separated it from the high-road, he leaned

against the trunk of a huge elm that guarded the gate of entrance. As he

did so he heard a sound of repressed sobbing from some spot not very far

away, and, moved by some undefinable impulse stronger than his will, he

pushed open the gate and entered the sacred precincts.

Instantly the weirdness and desolation of the spot struck him. He

wished, yet dreaded, to advance. Something in the grief of the mourner

whose sobs he had heard had seized upon his heart-strings, and yet, as

he hesitated, the sounds came again, and forgetting that his intrusion

might not prove altogether welcome, he pressed forward, till he came

within a few feet of the spot from which the sobs issued.

He had moved quietly, feeling the awesomeness of the place, and when he

paused it was with a sensation of dread, not to be entirely explained by

the sad and dismal surroundings. Dark as it was, he discerned the

outline of a form lying stretched in speechless misery across a grave;

but when, impelled by an almost irresistible compassion, he strove to

speak, his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth and he only drew back

farther into the shadow.

He had recognised the mourner and the grave. The mourner was Frederick

and the grave that of Agatha Webb.

A few minutes later Mr. Sutherland reappeared at the door of the inn,

and asked for a gig and driver to take him back to Sutherlandtown. He

said, in excuse for his indecision, that he had undertaken to walk, but

had found his strength inadequate to the exertion. He was looking very

pale, and trembled so that the landlord, who took his order, asked him

if he were ill. But Mr. Sutherland insisted that he was quite well, only

in a hurry, and showed the greatest impatience till he was again started

upon the road.

For the first half-mile he sat perfectly silent. The moon was now up,

and the road stretched before them, flooded with light. As long as no

one was to be seen on this road, or on the path running beside it, Mr.

Sutherland held himself erect, his eyes fixed before him, in an attitude

of anxious inquiry. But as soon as any sound came to break the silence,

or there appeared in the distance ahead of them the least appearance of

a plodding wayfarer, he drew back, and hid himself in the recesses of

the vehicle. This happened several times. Then his whole manner changed.

They had just passed Frederick, walking, with bowed head, toward

Sutherlandtown.

But he was not the only person on the road at this time. A few minutes

previously they had passed another man walking in the same direction. As

Mr. Sutherland mused over this he found himself peering through the

small window at the back of the buggy, striving to catch another glimpse

of the two men plodding behind him. He could see them both, his son's

form throwing its long shadow over the moonlit road, followed only too

closely by the man whose ungainly shape he feared to acknowledge to

himself was growing only too familiar in his eyes.

Falling into a troubled reverie, he beheld the well-known houses, and

the great trees under whose shadow he had grown from youth to manhood,

flit by him like phantoms in a dream. But suddenly one house and one

place drew his attention with a force that startled him again into an

erect attitude, and seizing with one hand the arm of the driver, he

pointed with the other at the door of the cottage they were passing,

saying in choked tones:

"See! see! Something dreadful has happened since we passed by here this

morning. That is crape, Samuel, crape, hanging from the doorpost

yonder!"

"Yes, it is crape," answered the driver, jumping out and running up the

path to look. "Philemon must be dead; the good Philemon."

Here was a fresh blow. Mr. Sutherland bowed before it for a moment, then

he rose hurriedly and stepped down into the road beside the driver.

"Get in again," said he, "and drive on. Ride a half-mile, then come back

for me. I must see the widow Jones."

The driver, awed both by the occasion and the feeling it had called up

in Mr. Sutherland, did as he was bid and drove away. Mr. Sutherland,

with a glance back at the road he had just traversed, walked painfully

up the path to Mrs. Jones's door.

A moment's conversation with the woman who answered his summons proved

the driver's supposition to be correct. Philemon had passed away. He had

never rallied from the shock he had received. He had joined his beloved

Agatha on the day of her burial, and the long tragedy of their mutual

life was over.

"It is a mercy that no inheritor of their misfortune remains," quoth the

good woman, as she saw the affliction her tidings caused in this

much-revered friend.

The assent Mr. Sutherland gave was mechanical. He was anxiously studying

the road leading toward Portchester.

Suddenly he stepped hastily into the house.

"Will you be so good as to let me sit down in your parlour for a few

minutes?" he asked. "I should like to rest there for an instant alone.

This final blow has upset me."

The good woman bowed. Mr. Sutherland's word was law in that town. She

did not even dare to protest against the ALONE which he had so pointedly

emphasised, but left him after making him, as she said, comfortable, and

went back to her duties in the room above.

It was fortunate she was so amenable to his wishes, for no sooner had

her steps ceased to be heard than Mr. Sutherland rose from the

easy-chair in which he had been seated, and, putting out the lamp widow

Jones had insisted on lighting, passed directly to the window, through

which he began to peer with looks of the deepest anxiety.

A man was coming up the road, a young man, Frederick. As Mr. Sutherland

recognised him he leaned forward with increased anxiety, till at the

appearance of his son in front his scrutiny grew so strained and

penetrating that it seemed to exercise a magnetic influence upon

Frederick, causing him to look up.

The glance he gave the house was but momentary, but in that glance the

father saw all that he had secretly dreaded. As his son's eye fell on

that fluttering bit of crape, testifying to another death in this

already much-bereaved community, he staggered wildly, then in a pause of

doubt drew nearer and nearer till his fingers grasped this symbol of

mourning and clung there. Next moment he was far down the road, plunging

toward home in a state of great mental disorder.

A half-hour afterwards Mr. Sutherland reached home. He had not overtaken

Frederick again, or even his accompanying shadow. Ascertaining at his

own door that his son had not yet come in, but had been seen going

farther up the hill, he turned back again into the road and proceeded

after him on foot.

The next place to his own was occupied by Mr. Halliday. As he approached

it he caught sight of a man standing half in and half out of the

honeysuckle porch, whom he at first thought to be Frederick. But he soon

saw that it was the fellow who had been following his son all the way

from Portchester, and, controlling his first movement of dislike, he

stepped up to him and quietly said:

"Sweetwater, is this you?"

The young man fell back and showed a most extraordinary agitation,

quickly suppressed, however. "Yes, sir, it is no one else. Do you know

what I am doing here?"

"I fear I do. You have been to Portchester. You have seen my son--"

Sweetwater made a hurried, almost an entreating, gesture.

"Never mind that, Mr. Sutherland. I had rather you wouldn't say anything

about that. I am as much broken up by what I have seen as you are. I

never suspected him of having any direct connection with this murder;

only the girl to whom he has so unfortunately attached himself. But

after what I have seen, what am I to think? what am I to do? I honour

you; I would not grieve you; but--but--oh, sir, perhaps you can help me

out of the maze into which I have stumbled. Perhaps you can assure me

that Mr. Frederick did not leave the ball at the time she did. I missed

him from among the dancers. I did not see him between twelve and three,

but perhaps you did; and--and--"

His voice broke. He was almost as profoundly agitated as Mr. Sutherland.

As for the latter, who found himself unable to reassure the other on

this very vital point, having no remembrance himself of having seen

Frederick among his guests during those fatal hours, he stood

speechless, lost in abysses, the depth and horror of which only a father

can appreciate. Sweetwater respected his anguish and for a moment was

silent himself. Then he burst out:

"I had rather never lived to see this day than be the cause of shame or

suffering to you. Tell me what to do. Shall I be deaf, dumb--"

Here Mr. Sutherland found voice.

"You make too much of what you saw," said he. "My boy has faults and has

lived anything but a satisfactory life, but he is not as bad as you

would intimate. He can never have taken life. That would be incredible,

monstrous, in one brought up as he has been. Besides, if he were so far

gone in evil as to be willing to attempt crime, he had no motive to do

so; Sweetwater, he had no motive. A few hundred dollars but these he

could have got from me, and did, but--"

Why did the wretched father stop? Did he recall the circumstances under

which Frederick had obtained these last hundreds from him? They were not

ordinary circumstances, and Frederick had been in no ordinary strait.

Mr. Sutherland could not but acknowledge to himself that there was

something in this whole matter which contradicted the very plea he was

making, and not being able to establish the conviction of his son's

innocence in his own mind, he was too honourable to try to establish it

in that of another. His next words betrayed the depth of his struggle:

"It is that girl who has ruined him, Sweetwater. He loves but doubts

her, as who could help doing after the story she told us day before

yesterday? Indeed, he has doubted her ever since that fatal night, and

it is this which has broken his heart, and not--not--" Again the old

gentleman paused; again he recovered himself, this time with a touch of

his usual dignity and self-command. "Leave me," he cried. "Nothing that

you have seen has escaped me; but our interpretations of it may differ.

I will watch over my son from this hour, and you may trust my

vigilance."

Sweetwater bowed.

"You have a right to command me," said he. "You may have forgotten, but

I have not, that I owe my life to you. Years ago--perhaps you can recall

it--it was at the Black Pond--I was going down for the third time and my

mother was screaming in terror on the bank, when you plunged in

and--Well, sir, such things are never forgotten, and, as I said before,

you have only to command me." He turned to go, but suddenly came back.

There were signs of mental conflict in his face and voice. "Mr.

Sutherland, I am not a talkative man. If I trust your vigilance you may

trust my discretion. Only I must have your word that you will convey no

warning to your son."

Mr. Sutherland made an indefinable gesture, and Sweetwater again

disappeared, this time not to return. As for Mr. Sutherland, he remained

standing before Mr. Halliday's door. What had the young man meant by

this emphatic repetition of his former suggestion? That he would be

quiet, also, and not speak of what he had seen? Why, then--But to the

hope thus given, this honest-hearted gentleman would yield no quarter,

and seeing a duty before him, a duty he dare not shirk, he brought his

emotions, violent as they were, into complete and absolute subjection,

and, opening Mr. Halliday's door, entered the house. They were old

neighbours, and ceremony was ignored between them.

Finding the hall empty and the parlour door open he walked immediately

into the latter room. The sight that met his eyes never left his memory.

Agnes, his little Agnes, whom he had always loved and whom he had vainly

longed to call by the endearing name of daughter, sat with her face

towards him, looking up at Frederick. That young gentleman had just

spoken to her, or she had just received something from his hand for her

own was held out and her expression was one of gratitude and acceptance.

She was not a beautiful girl, but she had a beautiful look, and at this

moment it was exalted by a feeling the old gentleman had once longed,

but now dreaded inexpressibly, to see there. What could it mean? Why did

she show at this unhappy crisis, interest, devotion, passion almost, for

one she had regarded with open scorn when it was the dearest wish of his

heart to see them united? It was one of the contradictions of our

mysterious human nature, and at this crisis and in this moment of secret

heart-break and miserable doubt it made the old gentleman shrink, with

his first feeling of actual despair.

The next moment Agnes had risen and they were both facing him.

"Good-evening, Agnes."

Mr. Sutherland forced himself to speak lightly.

"Ah, Frederick, do I find you here?" The latter question had more

constraint in it.

Frederick smiled. There was an air of relief about him, almost of

cheerfulness.

"I was just leaving," said he. "I was the bearer of a message to Miss

Halliday." He had always called her Agnes before.

Mr. Sutherland, who had found his faculties confused by the expression

he had surprised on the young girl's face, answered with a divided

attention:

"And I have a message to give you. Wait outside on the porch for me,

Frederick, till I exchange a word with our little friend here."

Agnes, who had thrust something she held into a box that lay beside her

on a table, turned with a confused blush to listen.

Mr. Sutherland waited till Frederick had stepped into the hall. Then he

drew Agnes to one side and remorselessly, persistently, raised her face

toward him till she was forced to meet his benevolent but searching

regard.

"Do you know," he whispered, in what he endeavoured to make a bantering

tone, "how very few days it is since that unhappy boy yonder confessed

his love for a young lady whose name I cannot bring myself to utter in

your presence?"

The intent was kind, but the effect was unexpectedly cruel. With a droop

of her head and a hurried gasp which conveyed a mixture of entreaty and

reproach, Agnes drew back in a vague endeavour to hide her sudden

uneasiness. He saw his mistake, and let his hands drop.

"Don't, my dear," he whispered. "I had no idea it would hurt you to hear

this. You have always seemed indifferent, hard even, toward my

scapegrace son. And this was right, for--for--" What could he say, how

express one-tenth of that with which his breast was labouring! He could

not, he dared not, so ended, as we have intimated, by a confused

stammering.

Agnes, who had never before seen this object of her lifelong admiration

under any serious emotion, felt an impulse of remorse, as if she herself

had been guilty of occasioning him embarrassment. Plucking up her

courage, she wistfully eyed him.

"Did you imagine," she murmured, "that I needed any warning against

Frederick, who has never honoured me with his regard, as he has the

young lady you cannot mention? I'm afraid you don't know me, Mr.

Sutherland, notwithstanding I have sat on your knee and sometimes

plucked at your beard in my infantile insistence upon attention."

"I am afraid I don't know you," he answered. "I feel that I know nobody

now, not even my son."

He had hoped she would look up at this, but she did not.

"Will my little girl think me very curious and very impertinent if I ask

her what my son Frederick was saying when I came into the room?"

She looked up now, and with visible candour answered him immediately and

to the point:

"Frederick is in trouble, Mr. Sutherland. He has felt the need of a

friend who could appreciate this, and he has asked me to be that friend.

Besides, he brought me a packet of letters which he entreated me to keep

for him. I took them, Mr. Sutherland, and I will keep them as he asked

me to do, safe from everybody's inspection, even my own."

Oh! why had he questioned her? He did not want to know of these letters;

he did not want to know that Frederick possessed anything which he was

afraid to retain in his own possession.

"My son did wrong," said he, "to confide anything to your care which he

did not desire to retain in his own home. I feel that I ought to see

these letters, for if my son is in trouble, as you say, I, his father,

ought to know it."

"I am not sure about that," she smiled. "His trouble may be of a

different nature than you imagine. Frederick has led a life that he

regrets. I think his chief source of suffering lies in the fact that it

is so hard for him to make others believe that he means to do

differently in the future."

"Does he mean to do differently?"

She flushed. "He says so, Mr. Sutherland. And I, for one, cannot help

believing him. Don't you see that he begins to look like another man?"

Mr. Sutherland was taken aback. He had noticed this fact, and had found

it a hard one to understand. To ascertain what her explanation of it

might be, he replied at once:

"There is a change in him--a very evident change. What is the occasion

of it? To what do you ascribe it, Agnes?"

How breathlessly he waited for her answer! Had she any suspicion of the

awful doubts which were so deeply agitating himself that night? She did

not appear to have.

"I hesitate," she faltered, "but not from any doubt of Frederick, to

tell you just what I think lies at the bottom of the sudden change

observable in him. Miss Page (you see, I can name her, if you cannot)

has proved herself so unworthy of his regard that the shock he has

received has opened his eyes to certain failings of his own which made

his weakness in her regard possible. I do not know of any other

explanation. Do you?"

At this direct question, breathed though it was by tender lips, and

launched in ignorance of the barb which carried it to his heart, Mr.

Sutherland recoiled and cast an anxious look upon the door. Then with

forced composure he quietly said: "If you who are so much nearer his

age, and, let me hope, his sympathy, do not feel sure of his real

feelings, how should I, who am his father, but have never been his

confidant?"

"Oh," she cried, holding out her hands, "such a good father! Some day he

will appreciate that fact as well as others. Believe it, Mr. Sutherland,

believe it." And then, ashamed of her glowing interest, which was a

little more pronounced than became her simple attitude of friend toward

a man professedly in love with another woman, she faltered and cast the

shyest of looks upward at the face she had never seen turned toward her

with anything but kindness. "I have confidence in Frederick's good

heart," she added, with something like dignity.

"Would God that I could share it!" was the only answer she received.

Before she could recover from the shock of these words, Mr. Sutherland

was gone.

Agnes was more or less disconcerted by this interview. There was a

lingering in her step that night, as she trod the little white-embowered

chamber sacred to her girlish dreams, which bespake an overcharged

heart; a heart that, before she slept, found relief in these few words

whispered by her into the night air, laden with the sweetness of

honeysuckles:

"Can it be that he is right? Did I need such a warning,--I, who have

hated this man, and who thought that it was my hatred which made it

impossible for me to think of anything or anybody else since we parted

from each other last night? O me, if it is so!"

And from the great, wide world without, tremulous with moonlight, the

echo seemed to come back:

"Woe to thee, Agnes Halliday, if this be so!"

XX

A SURPRISE FOR MR. SUTHERLAND

Meanwhile Mr. Sutherland and Frederick stood facing each other in the

former's library. Nothing had been said during their walk down the hill,

and nothing seemed likely to proceed from Frederick now, though his

father waited with great and growing agitation for some explanation that

would relieve the immense strain on his heart. At last he himself spoke,

dryly, as we all speak when the heart is fullest and we fear to reveal

the depth of our emotions.

"What papers were those you gave into Agnes Halliday's keeping? Anything

which we could not have more safely, not to say discreetly, harboured in

our own house?"

Frederick, taken aback, for he had not realised that his father had seen

these papers, hesitated for a moment; then he boldly said:

"They were letters--old letters--which I felt to be better out of this

house than in it. I could not destroy them, so I gave them into the

guardianship of the most conscientious person I know. I hope you won't

demand to see those letters. Indeed, sir, I hope you won't demand to see

them. They were not written for your eye, and I would rather rest under

your displeasure than have them in any way made public."

Frederick showed such earnestness, rather than fear, that Mr. Sutherland

was astonished.

"When were these letters written?" he asked. "Lately, or before--You say

they are old; how old?"

Frederick's breath came easier.

"Some of them were written years ago--most of them, in fact. It is a

personal matter--every man has such. I wish I could have destroyed them.

You will leave them with Agnes, sir?"

"You astonish me," said Mr. Sutherland, relieved that he could at least

hope that these letters were in nowise connected with the subject of his

own frightful suspicions. "A young girl, to whom you certainly were most

indifferent a week ago, is a curious guardian of letters you decline to

show your father."

"I know it," was Frederick's sole reply.

Somehow the humility with which this was uttered touched Mr. Sutherland

and roused hopes he had supposed dead. He looked his son for the first

time directly in the eye, and with a beating heart said:

"Your secrets, if you have such, might better be entrusted to your

father. You have no better friend--" and there he stopped with a

horrified, despairing feeling of inward weakness. If Frederick had

committed a crime, anything would be better than knowing it. Turning

partially aside, he fingered the papers on the desk before which he was

standing. A large envelope, containing some legal document, lay before

him. Taking it up mechanically, he opened it. Frederick as mechanically

watched him.

"I know," said the latter, "that I have no better friend. You have been

too good, too indulgent. What is it, father? You change colour, look

ill, what is there in that paper?"

Mr. Sutherland straightened himself; there was a great reserve of

strength in this broken-down man yet. Fixing Frederick with a gaze more

penetrating than any he had yet bestowed upon him, he folded his hands

behind him with the document held tightly between them, and remarked:

"When you borrowed that money from me you did it like a man who expected

to repay it. Why? Whence did you expect to receive the money with which

to repay me? Answer, Frederick; this is your hour for confession."

Frederick turned so pale his father dropped his eyes in mercy.

"Confess?" he repeated. "What should I confess? My sins? They are too

many. As for that money, I hoped to return it as any son might hope to

reimburse his father for money advanced to pay a gambler's debt. I said

I meant to work. My first money earned shall be offered to you. I--"

"Well? Well?" His father was holding the document he had just read,

opened out before his eyes.

"Didn't you expect THIS?" he asked. "Didn't you know that that poor

woman, that wretchedly murdered, most unhappy woman, whose death the

whole town mourns, had made you her heir? That by the terms of this

document, seen by me here and now for the first time, I am made executor

and you the inheritor of the one hundred thousand dollars or more left

by Agatha Webb?"

"No!" cried Frederick, his eyes glued to the paper, his whole face and

form expressing something more akin to terror than surprise. "Has she

done this? Why should she? I hardly knew her."

"No, you hardly knew her. And she? She hardly knew you; if she had she

would have abhorred rather than enriched you. Frederick, I had rather

see you dead than stand before me the inheritor of Philemon and Agatha

Webb's hard-earned savings."

"You are right; it would be better," murmured Frederick, hardly heeding

what he said. Then, as he encountered his father's eye resting upon him

with implacable scrutiny, he added, in weak repetition: "Why should she

give her money to me? What was I to her that she should will me her

fortune?"

The father's finger trembled to a certain line in the document, which

seemed to offer some explanation of this; but Frederick did not follow

it. He had seen that his father was expecting a reply to the question he

had previously put, and he was casting about in his mind how to answer

it.

"When did you know of this will?" Mr. Sutherland now repeated. "For know

of it you did before you came to me for money."

Frederick summoned up his full courage and confronted his father

resolutely.

"No," said he, "I did not know of it. It is as much of a surprise to me

as it is to you."

He lied. Mr. Sutherland knew that he lied and Frederick knew that he

knew it. A shadow fell between them, which the older, with that

unspeakable fear upon him roused by Sweetwater's whispered suspicions,

dared no longer attempt to lift.

After a few minutes in which Frederick seemed to see his father age

before his eyes, Mr. Sutherland coldly remarked:

"Dr. Talbot must know of this will. It has been sent here to me from

Boston by a lawyer who drew it up two years ago. The coroner may not as

yet have heard of it. Will you accompany me to his office to-morrow? I

should like to have him see that we wish to be open with him in an

affair of such importance."

"I will accompany you gladly," said Frederick, and seeing that his

father neither wished nor was able to say anything further, he bowed

with distant ceremony as to a stranger and quietly withdrew. But when

the door had closed between them and only the memory of his father's

changed countenance remained to trouble him, he paused and laid his hand

again on the knob, as if tempted to return. But he left without doing

so, only to turn again at the end of the hall and gaze wistfully back.

Yet he went on.

As he opened his own door and disappeared within, he said half audibly:

"Easy to destroy me now, Amabel. One word and I am lost!"