Am I asking too much of you?"

"No, not at all," he assured her. "Expect me at eight. Will that be too
early?"

"No, no. Oh, how those people stared! Let us hasten back or they may
connect your name with what we want kept secret."

He smiled at her fears, but gave in to her humour; he would see her soon
again and possibly learn something which would amply repay him, both for
his trouble and his patience.

But when evening came and she turned to face him in that little
sitting-room where he had quietly followed her, he was conscious of a
change in her manner which forbade these high hopes. The gleam was gone
from her eyes; the tremulous eagerness from her mobile and sensitive
mouth. She had been thinking in the hours which had passed, and had
lost the confidence of that one impetuous moment. Her greeting betrayed
embarrassment and she hesitated painfully before she spoke.

"I don't know what you will think of me," she ventured at last,
motioning to a chair but not sitting herself. "You have had time to
think over what I said and probably expect something real,--something
you could tell people. But it isn't like that. It's a feeling--a belief.
I'm so sure--"

"Sure of what, Miss Scott?"

She gave a glance at the door before stepping up nearer. He had not
taken the chair she preferred.

"Sure that I have seen the face of the man who murdered her. It was in a
dream," she whisperingly completed, her great eyes misty with awe.

"A dream, Miss Scott?" He tried to hide his disappointment.

"Yes; I knew that it would sound foolish to you; it sounds foolish to
me. But listen, sir. Listen to what I have to tell and then you can
judge. I was very much agitated yesterday. I had to write a letter
at Mr. Brotherson's dictation--a letter to her. You can understand my
horror and the effort I made to hide my emotion. I was quite unnerved.
I could not sleep till morning, and then--and then--I saw--I hope I can
describe it."

Grasping at a near-by chair, she leaned on it for support, closing her
eyes to all but that inner vision. A breathless moment followed, then
she murmured in strained monotonous tones:

"I see it again--just as I saw it in the early morning--but even more
plainly, if that is possible. A hall--(I should call it a hall, though I
don't remember seeing any place like it before), with a little staircase
at the side, up which there comes a man, who stops just at the top and
looks intently my way. There is fie