hen coolly carry out to the end, a crime so unheard of in its
atrocity. There must be some other explanation of the facts before us.
Why, the date in the ring is enough. If that speaks true, the marriage
between Edwin Urquhart and the gentle Honora was but a day old, and even
the worst of men take time to weary of their wives before they take
measures against them. Yet, the look and manner of the man! His
affection for the box, and his manifest indifference for his wife! And,
lastly, and most convincing of all, this awful token in the room
beyond! What should I, what could I think!

At this point in my surmises I grew so faint that I turned to Dr. Kenyon
and Mr. Tamworth for relief. They had just finished my record of the
past, and were looking at each other in surprise and horror.

"It surpasses the most atrocious deeds of the middle ages," quoth Mr.
Tamworth.

"In a country deemed civilized," finished the doctor.

"Then you think," I tremblingly began--

"That you have harbored two demons under your roof, Mrs. Truax. There
seems to be no doubt that the woman who went away with Mr. Urquhart was
not the woman who came with him. She lies here, while the other--"

He paused, and Mr. Tamworth took up the word.

"It seems to have been a strangely triumphant piece of villainy. The
woman who profited by it must have had great self-control and force of
character. Don't you think so, doctor?"

"Unquestionably," was the firm reply.

"You do not say how you account for her presence here," I now
reluctantly intimated.

"I think she was hidden in the great box. It was large enough for that,
was it not, Mrs. Truax?"

I nodded, much agitated.

"His care of it, his call for a supper, the change in its weight, and
the fact that its contents were of a different character in going than
coming, all point to the fact of its having been used for the purpose we
intimated. It strikes one as most horrible, but history furnishes us
with precedents of attempts equally daring, and if the box was well
furnished with holes--did you notice any breathing places in it?"

"No," I returned; "but I did not cast two glances at the box. I was
jealous of it, for the young wife's sake, though, as God knows, I had
little idea of what it contained, and merely noticed that it was big and
clumsy, and capable of holding many books."

"Yet you must have noticed, even in a cursory glance, whether its top or
sides were broken by holes."

"They wer