"Have you ever felt real sympathy with a criminal or a thief?" he asked
her after a while.

"Only once, I think," she replied, "and then I am not quite sure that
the unfortunate woman who did enlist my sympathies was the criminal you
make her out to be."

"You mean the heroine of the York mystery?" he replied blandly. "I know
that you tried very hard that time to discredit the only possible
version of that mysterious murder, the version which is my own. Now, I
am equally sure that you have at the present moment no more notion as to
who killed and robbed poor Lady Donaldson in Charlotte Square,
Edinburgh, than the police have themselves, and yet you are fully
prepared to pooh-pooh my arguments, and to disbelieve my version of the
mystery. Such is the lady journalist's mind."

"If you have some cock-and-bull story to explain that extraordinary
case," she retorted, "of course I shall disbelieve it. Certainly, if you
are going to try and enlist my sympathies on behalf of Edith Crawford, I
can assure you you won't succeed."

"Well, I don't know that that is altogether my intention. I see you are
interested in the case, but I dare say you don't remember all the
circumstances. You must forgive me if I repeat that which you know
already. If you have ever been to Edinburgh at all, you will have heard
of Graham's bank, and Mr. Andrew Graham, the present head of the firm,
is undoubtedly one of the most prominent notabilities of 'modern
Athens.'"

The man in the corner took two or three photos from his pocket-book and
placed them before the young girl; then, pointing at them with his long
bony finger--

"That," he said, "is Mr. Elphinstone Graham, the eldest son, a typical
young Scotchman, as you see, and this is David Graham, the second son."

Polly looked more closely at this last photo, and saw before her a young
face, upon which some lasting sorrow seemed already to have left its
mark. The face was delicate and thin, the features pinched, and the
eyes seemed almost unnaturally large and prominent.

"He was deformed," commented the man in the corner in answer to the
girl's thoughts, "and, as such, an object of pity and even of repugnance
to most of his friends. There was also a good deal of talk in Edinburgh
society as to his mental condition, his mind, according to many intimate
friends of the Grahams, being at times decidedly unhinged. Be that as it
may, I fancy that his life must have been a very sad one; he had lost