of all her faculties
by one sudden, mastering idea."

"You are a little too metaphysical for me," said Beardsley. "Poor Lou
isn't shrewd by any means, and always gives me the feeling that she
needs care and protection more than most women, if that is what you
mean."

"There is a singular expression in her face at times," I resumed.

"Ah! Now you have it!" he muttered.

"Sitting there in your parlor, where there is certainly nothing to
dread, she has glanced behind and about her again and again, as though
she heard a sound that frightened her. I observe, too, that when any man
speaks to her she fixes on him a keen, suspicious look. She does not
have it with women. It passes quickly, but it is there. It is precisely
the expression of an insane person, or a guilty one dreading arrest."

"You are a close observer, Floyd. I told my wife that we could not do
better than submit the whole case to your judgment. We are all Lou's
friends in the neighborhood; but we cannot look at the matter with your
legal experience and unprejudiced eyes. Come, let us go into supper
now."

The next morning I was summoned to Beardsley's "study" (so called
probably from the total absence of either book or newspaper), and found
himself and his wife awaiting me, and also a Doctor Scheffer, whom I had
previously noticed among the guests--a gaunt, hectic young man,
apparently on the high road to death, the victim of an incurable
consumption.

"I asked William Scheffer to meet us here," said Mr. Beardsley, "as
Louisa Waring was an inmate of his father's house at the time of the
occurrence. She and William were children and playmates together. I
believe I am right, William. You knew all the circumstances of that
terrible night?"

The young man's heavy face changed painfully. "Yes; as much as was known
to any one but Louisa, and--the guilty man, whoever he was. But why are
you dragging out that wretched affair?" turning angrily on Mrs.
Beardsley. "Surely any friend of Miss Waring's would try to bury the
past for her!"

"No," said the lady calmly. "It has been buried quite too long, in my
opinion; for she has carried her burden for six years. It is time now
that we should try to lift it for her. You are sitting in a draught,
William. Sit on this sofa."

Scheffer, coughing frightfully, and complaining with all the testiness
of a long-humored invalid, was disposed of at last, and Beardsley began:

"The story is briefly this. Louisa, before h