sness. "Balked in every other
endeavor to learn the truth, I have come to you, whom I believe to be
noble at the core, for that help which seems likely to fail us in every
other direction: for the word which, if it does not absolutely save your
cousin, will at least put us upon the track of what will."

"I do not understand what you mean," she protested, slightly shrinking.

"Miss Leavenworth," I pursued, "it is needless for me to tell you in
what position your cousin stands. You, who remember both the form and
drift of the questions put to her at the inquest, comprehend it all
without any explanation from me. But what you may not know is this, that
unless she is speedily relieved from the suspicion which, justly or not,
has attached itself to her name, the consequences which such suspicion
entails must fall upon her, and----"

"Good God!" she cried; "you do not mean she will be----"

"Subject to arrest? Yes."

It was a blow. Shame, horror, and anguish were in every line of her
white face. "And all because of that key!" she murmured.

"Key? How did you know anything about a key?"

"Why," she cried, flushing painfully; "I cannot say; didn't you tell
me?"

"No," I returned.

"The papers, then?"

"The papers have never mentioned it."

She grew more and more agitated. "I thought every one knew. No, I did
not, either," she avowed, in a sudden burst of shame and penitence. "I
knew it was a secret; but--oh, Mr. Raymond, it was Eleanore herself who
told me."

"Eleanore?"

"Yes, that last evening she was here; we were together in the
drawing-room."

"What did she tell?"

"That the key to the library had been seen in her possession."

I could scarcely conceal my incredulity. Eleanore, conscious of the
suspicion with which her cousin regarded her, inform that cousin of a
fact calculated to add weight to that suspicion? I could not believe
this.

"But you knew it?" Mary went on. "I have revealed nothing I ought to
have kept secret?"

"No," said I; "and, Miss Leavenworth, it is this thing which makes
your cousin's position absolutely dangerous. It is a fact that,
left unexplained, must ever link her name with infamy; a bit of
circumstantial evidence no sophistry can smother, and no denial
obliterate. Only her hitherto spotless reputation, and the efforts of
one who, notwithstanding appearances, believes in her innocence, keeps
her so long from the clutch of the officers of justice. That key, and
the silence