we must make that
search the one great object of our lives. Upon us devolve the right and
the duty to avenge her death by bringing her destroyer to the scaffold.
Miriam, do you hear--do you hear and understand me?"

"Yes, mamma; yes."

"Child, listen to me! I have a clue to Marian's murderer!"

Miriam started, and attended breathlessly.

"My love, it was no poor waterman or fugitive negro, tempted by want or
cupidity. It was a gentleman, Miriam."

"A gentleman?"

"Yes; one that she must have become acquainted with during her visit to
Washington three years ago. Oh, I remember her unaccountable distress in
the months that followed that visit! His name, or his assumed name,
was--attend, Miriam!--Thomas Truman."

"Thomas Truman!"

"Yes; and while you live, remember that name, until its owner hangs upon
the gallows!"

Miriam shuddered, and hid her pale face in her hands.

"Here," said Edith, taking a small packet of letters from under her
pillow. "Here, Miriam, is a portion of her correspondence with this man,
Thomas Truman--I found it in the secret drawer of her bureau. There are
several notes entreating her to give him a meeting, on the beach, at
Mossy Dell, and at other points. From the tenor of these notes, I am led
to believe that she refused these meetings; and, more than that, from
the style of one in particular I am induced to suppose that she might
have been privately married to that man. Why he should have enticed her
to that spot to destroy her life, I do not know. But this, at least, I
know: that our dearest Marian has been basely assassinated. I see reason
to suppose the assassin to have been her lover, or her husband, and that
his real or assumed name was Thomas Truman. These facts, and this little
packet of notes and letters, are all that I have to offer as testimony.
But by following a slight clue, we are sometimes led to great
discoveries."

"Why didn't you show them to the gentlemen, dear mamma? They might have
found out something by them."

"I showed them to Thurston Willcoxen, who has been so energetic in the
pursuit of the unknown murderer; but Thurston became so violently
agitated that I thought he must have fallen. And he wished very much to
retain those letters, but I would not permit them to be carried out of
my sight. When he became calmer, however, he assured me that there could
be no possible connection between the writer of these notes and the
murderer of the unfortunate girl. I