the day?"

"Well, no, now, I don't."

"But can't you, if you try? Wasn't there something done by you that day
which will assist your memory?"

Again that slow "Let me see" showed that the man was pondering. Suddenly
he slapped his thigh and exclaimed:

"You might be a lawyer's clerk now, mightn't you; or, perhaps, a lawyer
himself? I do remember that a large load of stone was sent off that day,
and a minute's look at my book---- It was Tuesday," he presently
affirmed.

Mr. Byrd drew a deep breath. There is sadness mixed with the
satisfaction of such a triumph.

"I am much obliged to you," he said, in acknowledgment of the other's
trouble. "The friends of this gentleman will now have little difficulty
in tracing him. There is but one thing further I should like to make
sure of."

And taking from his memorandum-book the picture he kept concealed there,
he showed him the face of Mr. Mansell, now altered to a perfect
likeness, and asked him if he recognized it.

The decided Yes which he received made further questions unnecessary.

XVI.

STORM.

Oh, my offence is rank, it smells to heav'n:
It hath the primal eldest curse upon 't!--HAMLET.

A DAY had passed. Mr. Byrd, who no longer had any reason to doubt that
he was upon the trail of the real assailant of the Widow Clemmens, had
resolved upon a third visit to the woods, this time with the definite
object of picking up any clew, however trifling, in support of the fact
that Craik Mansell had passed through the glade behind his aunt's house.

The sky, when he left the hotel, was one vast field of blue; but by the
time he reached the terminus of the car-route, and stepped out upon the
road leading to the woods, dark clouds had overcast the sun, and a cool
wind replaced the quiet zephyrs which had all day fanned the brilliant
autumn foliage.

He did not realize the condition of the atmosphere, however, and
proceeded on his way, thinking more of the person he had just perceived
issuing from the door-way of Professor Darling's lofty mansion, than of
the low mutterings of distant thunder that now and then disturbed the
silence of the woods, or of the ominous, brazen tint which was slowly
settling over the huge bank of cloud that filled the northern sky. For
that person was Miss Dare, and her presence here, or anywhere near him,
at this time, must of necessity, awaken a most painful train of thought.

But, though unmindful of the stor