k of our going
_there_,"--with another shudder--and she slipped away from his detaining
hand.

That evening Mr. Samuel Rice and Mrs. Page took a walk by moonlight.
Laughing gossips commented on it after their fashion; and disagreeable
gossips remarked that they came home very late, after _their_ fashion.
But nobody, they believed, saw where they went, or what they did. Yet
those two came from performing an act of Christian charity, each with a
sense of guilt and unworthiness very irritating to endure, albeit from
very different causes. One, because an unwelcome suspicion had thrust
itself into his mind; and the other----

The ground of Sam's suspicion was a photograph, which, in handling the
gambler's body somewhat awkwardly, by reason of its weight--Mrs. Page
had found, at the last, she could not render any assistance--had slipped
from some receptacle in its clothing. A hasty glance, under the full
light of the moon, had shown him the features of the lady who sat twelve
paces away, with her hands over her face. It is not always those that
sin who suffer most from the consciousness of sin; and Sam, perhaps,
with that hint of possible--nay, almost certain--wickedness in his
breast-pocket, was more burdened by the weight of it than many a
criminal about to suffer all the terrors of the law; for the woman that
he loved stood accused, if not convicted, before his conscience and her
own, and he could not condemn, because his heart refused to judge her.

When the two stood together under the light of the lamp in the deserted
parlor of the Silver Brick Hotel, the long silence which, by her quick
perceptions, had been recognized as accusing her, upon what evidence she
did not yet know, was at length broken by Sam's voice, husky with
agitation.

"Mrs. Page," he said, assuming an unconscious dignity of mien and
sternness of countenance, "I shall ask you some questions, sometime,
which you may not think quite polite. And you must answer me: you
understand. I'm bound to know the truth about this man."

"About this man!" Then he suspected her of connection with the wretched
criminal whose body had only just now been hidden from mocking eyes? How
much did he suspect? how much did he _know_? Her pale face and
frightened eyes seemed to ask these questions of him; but not a sound
escaped her lips. The imploring look, so strange upon her usually bright
face, touched all that was tender in Sam's romantic nature. In another
moment he