m.

He was just in time to catch the last words, and he stepped up hurriedly
to the doctor ere he could utter another word to Dorothy.

"Do you say that my betrothed is dying?" he cried, hoarsely, flinging
himself on his knees beside the couch, on the side opposite to where
Dorothy was.

"What we have to say had better be deferred for a few moments, until he
is more calm and better able to bear the shock," said Doctor Schimpf,
nodding in the direction where Mr. Garner knelt prostrated with grief.

Dorothy had become strangely calm, and both doctors noticed that she
intently watched the actions of young Mr. Garner.

"I think I have unearthed the secret of the whole affair," whispered
Doctor Crandall to his friend. "Watch the gaze Mrs. Brown is bending
upon the betrothed lover of the girl who lies sick unto death!"

He motioned the doctor back into the recess of the bay-window.

"Let me finish my story here," he whispered under his breath. "This is
what I would say: This strange woman in the black dress loves Mr.
Garner. Ah! you start, my friend. So did I when the thought first
flashed across my mind. Within the last few moments this thought has
settled into a conviction. She is the only one interested in the death
of Miss Staples. Look carefully into the chain of evidence I present to
you, and you will have the same opinion that I have formed, no doubt.

"In the first place, as we both know, Miss Staples' sudden attack of
illness dated from a few days after this mysterious young woman crossed
this threshold.

"Who she is, or whence she came, no one seems to have been clever enough
to find out.

"She has come and gone from this house, alone, and at all hours, no one
questioning her movements.

"She has taken full charge of the patient, from midnight until early
morning, and each forenoon our patient seems to have grown alarmingly
worse. We have both discovered the presence of arsenic, which has been
administered to her.

"And now last, but by no means least, I have been observing this
mysterious woman with keen scrutiny. I could stake my life upon it she
wears a wig, that her complexion is a 'made-up' one. By this you will
understand me to say that the lines we see traced upon her face are the
work of art, not time. The eyes covered by those blue glasses are bright
as stars. In short, she is not the middle-aged personage that she
appears, but is a young woman, or rather a fiend incarnate, in disguise.

"I