"

"Physically, his granddaughter was more than a match for him,
especially since his last illness; and I assure you she looks like some
daughter of the Vikings. She certainly is a woman of grand proportions,
and wonderfully symmetrical."

"What is her age?"

"About eighteen, I should think; though her size and a certain majestic
bearing might convey the impression that she was older."

"How can you connect so dreadful a crime with a young and beautiful
woman, of whom you know absolutely nothing?"

"My theory is, that she intended merely to get possession of the will,
the contents of which had been made known to her--and of the money,
that she knew or surmised was kept in the vault. When the effect of the
chloroform wore off, and the General waked to find her at the vault; a
struggle evidently took place, and in desperation at the thought of
being detected, she killed him. You do not understand all the bearings
of even slight circumstances in a case like this, but we who make a
study of such sad matters, know the significance of the disappearance
of the will; the destruction of which could benefit only her mother and
herself. The vault was open; the gold, silver, some valuable jewelry,
and the will are missing from the tin box. All the other papers were
left, even a package of bonds, amounting to thousands of dollars. She
seemed to know that the bonds might lead to detection, hence she did
not take them. On the floor, and in the bottom of the tin box were
found two twenty-dollar gold pieces. We are collecting all the
evidence, and it constitutes a powerful array of proof."

"We? Do you mean that you are hunting down a woman?"

Miss Gordon withdrew her hand from her lover's, and instinctively moved
farther from him.

"I am most diligently hunting down the author of a foul and awful
crime; and it is my duty to my friend and client to use every possible
exertion, in discovering and bringing to punishment the person who
robbed and murdered him--be it man, woman or child. Feminine youth and
beauty are no aegis against the barbed javelins of justice and the
District Solicitor (Mr. Churchill) and I, have no doubt of the guilt of
the woman, who will soon be put on trial here for her monstrous and
unnatural crime."

CHAPTER V.

In a deep, narrow "railway cut," through Virginia hills, a south-bound
freight train had been so badly wrecked in consequence of a "washout,"
that the southern passenger express going