e to what place she was going?"

"I do not know where she came from, nor where she went. She was most
uncommonly beautiful."

"Are the telegraph wires working south?"

"Why bless you, sir! they are down in several places, from the weight
of the ice, so I heard the station operator say, just before you came
in."

As Dr. Hargrove walked away, an expression of stern indignation
replaced the benign look that usually reigned over his noble
features, and he now resolutely closed all the avenues of compassion,
along which divers fallacious excuses and charitable conjectures had
marched into his heart, and stifled for a time the rigorous verdict
of reason.

He had known from the moment he learned the tin box was missing, that
only the frail, fair fingers of Minnie Merle could have abstracted
it, but justice demanded that he should have indisputable proof of
her presence in V---- after twelve o'clock, for he had not left the
library until that hour, and knew that the train passed through at
eleven.

Conviction is the pitiless work of unbiased reason, but faith is the
acceptance thereof, by will, and he would not wholly believe, until
there was no alternative. _Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus_, and
quite naturally Dr. Hargrove began to discredit the entire narrative
of wrongs, which had attained colossal proportions from her
delineation, and to censure himself most harshly for having suffered
this dazzling Delilah to extort from him a solemn promise of secrecy;
for, unworthy of sympathy as he now deemed her, his rigid rectitude
would not permit him to regard that unworthiness as sufficient
justification for abrogating his plighted word. Suspicious facts
which twelve hours before had been hushed by the soft spell of her
rich plaintive voice, now started up clamorous and accusing, and the
pastor could not avoid beholding the discrepancy between her pleas of
poverty and friendlessness, and the costly appearance of her
apparel,--coupled with her refusal to acquaint him with her means of
maintenance.

If, as she had averred, the stolen license was--with the exception of
his verbal testimony--the sole proof of her marriage, why was she not
satisfied with the copy given to her unless for some unrighteous
motive she desired to possess in order to destroy all evidence?

Surmise, with crooked and uncertain finger, had pointed to New
York--whose broad deep bosom shelters so many helpless human
waifs--as her probable place of de