oke; not with definite pleading, or even
with any very clear intimation that he desired some day to make her his
wife, but in a way that sufficed to tear the veil from their previous
intercourse and let her catch a glimpse, if no more, of his heart, and
its devouring passion.

He was absolutely startled at the result. She avowed that she had never
thought of his possessing such a regard for her; and for two days shut
herself up in her room and refused to see either him or his sister. Then
she came down, blooming like a rose, but more distant, more quiet, and
more inscrutable than ever. Pride, if pride she felt, was subdued under
a general aspect of womanly dignity that for a time held all further
avowals in check, and made all intercourse between them at once potent
in its attraction and painful in its restraint.

"She is waiting for a distinct offer of marriage," he decided.

And thus matters stood, notwithstanding the general opinion of their
friends, when the terrible event recorded in the foregoing chapters of
this story brought her in a new light before his eyes, and raised a
question, shocking as it was unexpected, as to whether this young girl,
immured as he had believed her to be in his own home, had by some
unknown and inexplicable means run upon the secret involving, if not
explaining, the mystery of this dreadful and daring crime.

Such an idea was certainly a preposterous one to entertain. He neither
could nor would believe she knew more of this matter than any other
disinterested person in town, and yet there had certainly been something
in her bearing upon the scene of tragedy, that suggested a personal
interest in the affair; nor could he deny that he himself had been
struck by the incongruity of her behavior long before it attracted the
attention of others.

But then he had opportunities for judging of her conduct which others
did not have. He not only had every reason to believe that the ring to
which she had so publicly laid claim was not her own, but he had
observed how, at the moment the dying woman had made that tell-tale
exclamation of "_Ring_ and _Hand!_" Miss Dare had looked down at the
jewel she had thus appropriated, with a quick horror and alarm that
seemed to denote she had some knowledge of its owner, or some suspicion,
at least, as to whose hand had worn it before she placed it upon her
own.

It was not, therefore, a matter of wonder that he was visibly affected
at finding her conduc