air; the hair of a woman.

'God! I couldn't believe it--no, I couldn't believe it!' the detective
whispered, horror-struck. 'And I have lost the man for the present
through my unbelief. Let's get into a sheltered place.... Now wait a
minute whilst I prove it.'

He thrust his hand into his waistcoat pocket, and withdrew thence a
minute packet of brown paper. Spreading it out he disclosed, coiled
in the middle, another long hair. It was the hair the clerk's wife had
found on Manston's pillow nine days before the Carriford fire. He held
the two hairs to the light: they were both of a pale-brown hue. He laid
them parallel and stretched out his arms: they were of the same length
to a nicety. The detective turned to Anne.

'It is the body of his first wife,' he said quietly. 'He murdered her,
as Mr. Springrove and the rector suspected--but how and when, God only
knows.'

'And I!' exclaimed Anne Seaway, a probable and natural sequence of
events and motives explanatory of the whole crime--events and
motives shadowed forth by the letter, Manston's possession of it, his
renunciation of Cytherea, and instalment of herself--flashing upon her
mind with the rapidity of lightning.

'Ah--I see,' said the detective, standing unusually close to her: and
a handcuff was on her wrist. 'You must come with me, madam. Knowing as
much about a secret murder as God knows is a very suspicious thing: it
doesn't make you a goddess--far from it.' He directed the bull's-eye
into her face.

'Pooh--lead on,' she said scornfully, 'and don't lose your principal
actor for the sake of torturing a poor subordinate like me.'

He loosened her hand, gave her his arm, and dragged her out of the
grove--making her run beside him till they had reached the rectory. A
light was burning here, and an auxiliary of the detective's awaiting
him: a horse ready harnessed to a spring-cart was standing outside.

'You have come--I wish I had known that,' the detective said to his
assistant, hurriedly and angrily. 'Well, we've blundered--he's gone--you
should have been here, as I said! I was sold by that woman, Miss
Aldclyffe--she watched me.' He hastily gave directions in an undertone
to this man. The concluding words were, 'Go in to the rector--he's up.
Detain Miss Aldclyffe. I, in the meantime, am driving to Casterbridge
with this one, and for help. We shall be sure to have him when it gets
light.'

He assisted Anne into the vehicle, and drove off with her. As the