o appear before a magistrate. I'm sorry to
be the one to tell you this, but the evidence against you is very strong,
and the police must do their duty."

"But I am innocent, absolutely innocent," I protested, the perspiration
starting from every pore as the full meaning of the charge burst upon me.
"What I have told you was correct. I, myself, found her dead--"

Hexford gave me a look.

"Don't talk," he kindly suggested. "Leave that to the lawyers." Then, as
the other man turned aside for a moment, he whispered in my ear, "It's no
go; one of our men saw you with your fingers on her throat. He had
clambered into a pine tree and the shade of the window was up. You had
better come quietly. Not a soul believes you innocent."

This, then, was what had doomed me from the start; this, and that partly
burned letter. I understood now why the kind-hearted coroner, who loved
my father, had urged me to tell my tale, hoping that I would explain this
act and give him some opportunity to indulge in a doubt. And I had failed
to respond to the hint he had given me. The act itself must appear so
sinister and the impulse which drove me to it so incomprehensible,
without the heart-rending explanation I dare not subjoin, that I never
questioned the wisdom of silence in its regard.

Yet this silence had undone me. I had been seen fingering my dead
betrothed's throat, and nothing I could now say or do would ever convince
people that she was dead before my hands touched her, strangled by
another's clutch. One person only in the whole world would know and feel
how false this accusation was. And yesterday that one's trust in my
guiltlessness would have thrown a ray of light upon the deepest infamy
which could befall me. But to-day there had settled over that once
innocent spirit, a cloud of too impenetrable a nature for any light to
struggle to and fro between us.

I could not contemplate that cloud. I could not dwell upon her misery, or
upon the revulsion of feeling which follows such impetuous acts. And it
had been an impetuous act--the result of one of her rages. I had been
told of these rages. I had even seen her in one. When they passed she was
her lovable self once more and very penitent and very downcast. If all I
feared were true, she was suffering acutely now. But I gave no thought to
this. I could dream of but one thing--how to save her from the penalty of
crime, a penalty I might be forced to suffer myself and would prefer to
su