al
experience that we were talking about this morning," he remarked.
"Perhaps the fellow was frightened and lost his head, or perhaps he
really heard some one at the door, and was obliged to escape without
reaping any of the fruits of his crime."

"Perhaps and perhaps," retorted Mr. Ferris, who was a quick man, and
who, once settled in a belief, was not to be easily shaken out of it.

"However that may be," continued Mr. Byrd, without seeming to notice the
irritating interruption, "I still think that the tramp, rather than the
humpback, will be the man to occupy your future attention."

And with a deprecatory bow to both gentlemen, he drew back and quietly
left the room.

Mr. Ferris at once recovered from his momentary loss of temper.

"I suppose the young man is right," he acknowledged; "but, if so, what
an encouragement we have received this morning to a belief in
clairvoyance." And with less irony and more conviction, he added: "The
humpback _must_ have known something about the murder."

And the coroner bowed; common-sense undoubtedly agreeing with this
assumption.

II.

AN APPEAL TO HEAVEN.

Her step was royal--queen-like.--LONGFELLOW.

IT was now half-past one. An hour and a half had elapsed since the widow
had been laid upon her bed, and to all appearance no change had taken
place in her condition. Within the room where she lay were collected the
doctor and one or two neighbors of the female sex, who watched every
breath she drew, and stood ready to notice the slightest change in the
stony face that, dim with the shadow of death, stared upon them from the
unruffled pillows. In the sitting-room Lawyer Orcutt conversed in a
subdued voice with Mr. Ferris, in regard to such incidents of the
widow's life as had come under his notice in the years of their daily
companionship, while the crowd about the gate vented their interest in
loud exclamations of wrath against the tramp who had been found, and the
unknown humpback who had not. Our story leads us into the crowd in
front.

"I don't think she'll ever come to," said one, who from his dusty coat
might have been a miller. "Blows like that haven't much let-up about
them."

"Doctor says she will die before morning," put in a pert young miss,
anxious to have her voice heard.

"Then it will be murder and no mistake, and that brute of a tramp will
hang as high as Haman."

"Don't condemn a man before you've had a chance to hear what he has