which the reason of her refusal to marry him could be
discovered. Of course the murder and her strange conduct produced a
great excitement in this quiet neighborhood. But you can imagine all
that. I simply have given you the facts which bear on the case."

"The first suspicion, I suppose, rested on Merrick?" I said.

"Yes. The natural explanation of her conduct was that she had witnessed
an encounter in the woods between Simms and her lover, in which the old
man was killed. Fortunately, however, Paul Merrick had not left the
house once during the afternoon until he went out with me to meet her."

"And then Miss Waring was selected as the guilty party?"

No one answered for a moment. Young Scheffer lay with his arm over his
face, which had grown so worn and haggard as the story was told that I
doubted whether his affection for the girl had been the slight matter
which he chose to represent it.

"No," said Beardsley; "she never was openly accused, nor even subjected
to any public interrogation. She came to the house in the opposite
direction from the spot where the murder took place. And there was no
rational proof that she had any cognizance of it. But there were not
wanting busybodies to suggest that she had met Simms in the woods, and
at some proffered insult from him had fired the fatal shot."

His wife's fair old face flushed. "How can you repeat such absurdity,
McCormack?" she said. "Louisa Waring was as likely to go about armed
as--as I!" knitting vehemently at a woollen stocking she had held idly
until now.

"I know it was absurd, my dear. But you know as well as I that though it
was but the mere breath of suspicion, it has always clung to the girl
and set her apart as it were from other women."

"What effect did that report have on Merrick?" I asked.

"The effect it would have on any man deserving the name," said
Beardsley. "If he loved her passionately before, she has been, I
believe, doubly dear to him since. But she has never allowed him to meet
her since that night."

"You think her feeling is unchanged for him?"

"I have no doubt of it," Mrs. Beardsley said. "There is nothing in Lou's
nature out of which you could make a heroine of tragedy. After the first
shock of that night was over she was just the commonplace little body
she was before, and could not help showing how fond she was of her old
lover. But she quietly refused to ever see him again."

"Merrick went abroad three years ago," interp