ss Althorpe.

I rose and went to the bedside, renewed the bandages on my patient's
head, and forced a drop or two of medicine between her half-shut lips.

"No," I returned, "I think her fever is abating." And it was, though
the suffering on her face was yet heart-rendingly apparent.

"Is she asleep?"

"She seems to be."

Miss Althorpe made an effort.

"I am not going to talk any more about myself." Then as I came back and
sat down by her side, she quietly asked:

"What do you think of the Van Burnam murder?"

Dismayed at the introduction of this topic, I was about to put my hand
over her mouth, when I noticed that her words had made no evident
impression upon my patient, who lay quietly and with a more composed
expression than when I left her bedside. This assured me, as nothing
else could have done, that she was really asleep, or in that lethargic
state which closes the eyes and ears to what is going on.

"I think," said I, "that the young man Howard stands in a very
unfortunate position. Circumstances certainly do look very black against
him."

"It is dreadful, unprecedently dreadful. I do not know what to think of
it all. The Van Burnams have borne so good a name, and Franklin
especially is held in such high esteem. I don't think anything more
shocking has ever happened in this city, do you, Miss Butterworth? You
saw it all, and should know. Poor, poor Mrs. Van Burnam!"

"She is to be pitied!" I remarked, my eyes fixed on the immovable face
of my patient.

"When I heard that a young woman had been found dead in the Van Burnam
mansion," Miss Althorpe pursued with such evident interest in this new
theme that I did not care to interrupt her unless driven to it by some
token of consciousness on the part of my patient, "my thoughts flew
instinctively to Howard's wife. Though why, I cannot say, for I never
had any reason to expect so tragic a termination to their marriage
relations. And I cannot believe now that he killed her, can you, Miss
Butterworth? Howard has too much of the gentleman in him to do a brutal
thing, and there was brutality as well as adroitness in the perpetration
of this crime. Have you thought of that, Miss Butterworth?"

"Yes," I nodded, "I have looked at the crime on all sides."

"Mr. Stone," said she, "feels dreadfully over the part he was forced to
play at the inquest. But he had no choice, the police would have his
testimony."

"That was right," I declared.

"It has made us do