thletic but
Adelaide was far from strong and never addicted to walking under the
most favourable conditions. Of all the mysteries surrounding her dead
presence in the club-house, the one which from the first had struck me as
the most inexplicable was the manner of her reaching there. Now I could
understand both that fact and how Carmel had succeeded in returning in
safety to her home. She had ridden both ways--a theory which likewise
explained how she came to wear a man's derby and possibly a man's
overcoat. With her skirts covered by a bear-skin she would present a very
fair figure of a man to any one who chanced to pass her. This was
desirable in her case. A man and woman driving at a late hour through the
city streets would attract little, if any, attention, while two women
might. Having no wish to attract attention, they had resorted to
subterfuge--or Carmel had; it was not like Adelaide to do so. She was
always perfectly open, both in manner and speech.

These were my deductions drawn from my own knowledge. Would others who
had not my knowledge be in any wise influenced to draw the same? Would
the fact that the mare had been out during those mysterious hours when
everybody had appeared to be absent from the house, saving the one young
girl whom they afterwards found stark, staring mad with delirium, serve
to awaken suspicion of her close and personal connection with this crime?
There was nothing in this reporter's article to show that such an idea
had dawned upon his mind, but the police are not readily hoodwinked and I
dreaded the result of their inquiries, if they chose to follow this
undoubted clew.

Yet, if they let this point slip, where should I be? Human nature is
human all the way through, and I could not help having moments when I
asked myself if this young girl were worth the sacrifice I contemplated
making for her? She was lovely to look at, amiable and of womanly promise
save at those rare and poignant moments when passion would seize her in a
gust which drove everything before it. But were any of these
considerations sufficient to justify me in letting my whole manhood slip
for the sake of one who, whatever the provocation, had used the strength
of her hands against the sister who had been as a mother to her for so
many years. That she had had provocation I did not doubt. Adelaide, for
all her virtues, was not an easy person to deal with. Upright and
perfectly sincere herself, she had no sympathy with