o the lane.

Dr. Tredwell moved to see.

"Is there not?" she repeated, glancing at Mr. Ferris.

He, too, turned to see.

But there was still an eye regarding her from behind the sitting-room
door, and, perceiving it, she impatiently ceased her efforts. She was
not mistaken about the tapping. A man was at the door whom both
gentlemen seemed to know.

"I come from the tavern where they are holding this tramp in custody,"
announced the new-comer in a voice too low to penetrate into the room.
"He is frightened almost out of his wits. Seems to think he was taken up
for theft, and makes no bones of saying that he did take a spoon or two
from a house where he was let in for a bite. He gave up the spoons and
expects to go to jail, but seems to have no idea that any worse
suspicion is hanging over him. Those that stand around think he is
innocent of the murder."

"Humph! well, we will see," ejaculated Mr. Ferris; and, turning back, he
met, with a certain sort of complacence, the eyes of the young lady who
had been somewhat impatiently awaiting his reappearance. "It seems there
are doubts, after all, about the tramp being the assailant."

The start she gave was sudden and involuntary. She took a step forward
and then paused as if hesitating. Instantly, Mr. Byrd, who had not
forgotten the small object she had been covering with her foot,
sauntered leisurely forward, and, spying a ring on the floor where she
had been standing, unconcernedly picked it up.

She did not seem to notice him. Looking at Mr. Ferris with eyes whose
startled, if not alarmed, expression she did not succeed in hiding from
the detective, she inquired, in a stifled voice:

"What do you mean? What has this man been telling you? You say it was
not the tramp. Who, then, was it?"

"That is a question we cannot answer," rejoined Mr. Ferris, astonished
at her heat, while Lawyer Orcutt, moving forward, attempted once more to
recall her to herself.

"Imogene," he pleaded,--"Imogene, calm yourself. This is not a matter of
so much importance to you that you need agitate yourself so violently in
regard to it. Come home, I beseech you, and leave the affairs of
justice to the attention of those whose duty it is to look after them."

But beyond acknowledging his well-meant interference by a deprecatory
glance, she stood immovable, looking from Dr. Tredwell to Mr. Ferris,
and back again to Dr. Tredwell, as if she sought in their faces some
confirmation of a hid