y public prosecutor
to recognize the fact and act accordingly."

Mr. Orcutt, who had by the greatest effort succeeded in calming himself
through this harangue, flashed sarcastically at this last remark, and
surveyed Mr. Ferris with a peculiar look.

"Are you sure," he inquired in a slow, ironical tone, "that she has not
succeeded in making it stronger?"

The look, the tone, were unexpected, and greatly startled Mr. Ferris.
Drawing nearer to his friend, he returned his gaze with marked
earnestness.

"What do you mean?" he asked, with secret anxiety.

But the wary lawyer had already repented this unwise betrayal of his own
doubts. Meeting his companion's eye with a calmness that amazed himself,
he remarked, instead of answering:

"It was through Miss Dare, then, that your attention was first drawn to
Mrs. Clemmens' nephew?"

"No," disclaimed Mr. Ferris, hastily. "The detectives already had their
eyes upon him. But a hint from her went far toward determining me upon
pursuing the matter," he allowed, seeing that his friend was determined
upon hearing the truth.

"So then," observed the other, with a stern dryness that recalled his
manner at the bar, "she opened a communication with you herself?"

"Yes."

It was enough. Mr. Orcutt dropped the arm of Mr. Ferris, and, with his
usual hasty bow, turned shortly away. The revelation which he believed
himself to have received in this otherwise far from satisfactory
interview, was one that he could not afford to share--that is, not yet;
not while any hope remained that circumstances would so arrange
themselves as to make it unnecessary for him to do so. If Imogene Dare,
out of her insane desire to free Gouverneur Hildreth from the suspicion
that oppressed him, had resorted to perjury and invented evidence
tending to show the guilt of another party--and remembering her
admissions at their last interview and the language she had used in her
letter of farewell, no other conclusion offered itself,--what
alternative was left him but to wait till he had seen her before he
proceeded to an interference that would separate her from himself by a
gulf still greater than that which already existed between them? To be
sure, the jealousy which consumed him, the passionate rage that seized
his whole being when he thought of all she dared do for the man she
loved, or that he thought she loved, counselled him to nip this attempt
of hers in the bud, and by means of a word to Mr. Ferris t