doubt about it. Not that I would acknowledge it to any one
but you, sir."

"Why?"

"Because if I work in this case at all, or make any efforts to follow up
the clue which I believe myself to have received, it must be done
secretly, and without raising the suspicion of any one in this town. I
am not in a position, as you know, to work openly, even if it were
advisable to do so, which it certainly is not. What I do must be
accomplished under cover, and I ask you to help me in my self-imposed
and by no means agreeable task, by trusting me to pursue my inquiries
alone, until such time as I assure myself beyond a doubt that my own
convictions are just, and that the man who murdered Mrs. Clemmens is
some one entirely separated from Mr. Hildreth and any interests that he
represents."

"You are, then, going to take up this case?"

The answer given was short, but it meant the deliberate shivering of the
fairest dream of love that had ever visited Mr. Byrd's imagination.

"I am."

BOOK II.

THE WEAVING OF A WEB.

XII.

THE SPIDER.

"Thus far we run before the wind."

IN the interview which Mr. Byrd had held with Miss Dare he had been
conscious of omitting one test which many another man in his place would
have made. This was the utterance of the name of him whom he really
believed to be the murderer of Mrs. Clemmens. Had he spoken this name,
had he allowed himself to breathe the words "Craik Mansell" into the
ears of this agitated woman, or even gone so far as to allude in the
most careless way to the widow's nephew, he felt sure his daring would
have been rewarded by some expression on her part that would have given
him a substantial basis for his theories to rest upon.

But he had too much natural chivalry for this. His feelings as a man got
in the way of his instinct as a detective. Nevertheless, he felt
positive that his suspicions in regard to this nephew of Mrs. Clemmens
were correct, and set about the task of fitting facts to his theory,
with all that settled and dogged determination which follows the pursuit
of a stern duty unwillingly embraced.

Two points required instant settling.

First, the truth or falsehood of his supposition as to the
identification of the person confronted by Miss Dare in the Syracuse
depot with the young man described by Miss Firman as the nephew of Widow
Clemmens.

Secondly, the existence or non-existence of proof going to show the
presence of this