on the parlor floor, together with
a sharp remembrance of the wandering eye and drawn countenance of the
young man whom I had seen stagger hence a moment before, with an almost
fainting woman in his arms, drew me on in spite of my feminine
instincts; and before I knew it, I was in the circular study and before
the prostrate form of a seemingly dying man. He was lying as you
probably found him a little later, with the cross on his breast and a
dagger in his heart; but his right hand was trembling, and when I
stooped to lift his head, he gave a shudder and then settled into
eternal stillness. I, a stranger from the street, had witnessed his last
breath while the young man who had gone out----"

"Can you describe him? Did you encounter him close enough for
recognition?"

"Yes, I think I would know him again. I can at least describe his
appearance. He wore a checked suit, very natty, and was more than
usually tall and fine-looking. But his chief peculiarity lay in his
expression. I never saw on any face, no, not on the stage, at the climax
of the most heart-rending tragedy, a greater accumulation of mortal
passion struggling with the imperative necessity for restraint. The
young girl whose blond head lay on his shoulder looked like a saint in
the clutch of a demon. She had seen death, but he--But I prefer not to
be the interpreter of that expressive countenance. It was lost to my
view almost immediately, and probably calmed itself in the face of the
throng he entered, or we would be hearing about him to-day. The girl
seemed to be devoid of almost all feeling. I should not remember her."

"And was that all? Did you just look at that recumbent man and vanish?
Didn't you encounter the butler? Haven't you some definite knowledge to
impart in his regard which will settle his innocence or fix his guilt?"

"I know no more about him than you do, sir, except that he was not in
the room by the time I reached it, and did not come into it during my
presence there. Yet it was his cry that led me to the spot; or do you
think it was that of the bird I afterward heard shouting and screaming
in the cage over the dead man's head?"

"It might have been the bird," admitted Mr. Gryce. "Its call is very
clear, and it seems strangely intelligent. What was it saying while you
stood there?"

"Something about Eva. 'Lovely Eva, maddening Eva! I love Eva! Eva!
Eva!'"

"Eva? Wasn't it 'Evelyn? Poor Evelyn?'"

"No, it was Eva. I thought he mi