hew Stacy, you and I were fellow-servants
together in New York, where the lady was murdered; and for some days,
you and I, and the person you have married, were left in charge of all
the valuable property that house had in it. One of those nights I went
away, leaving everything in its place. When I came back again the
wardrobes had been plundered, the bureaus broken open, the wine-cellar
pillaged."

Matthew Stacy had been growing crimson while Maggie spoke. He put up a
hand to his throat, as if something were choking him, and tore open a
button or two of his vest; then he gasped out:

"Miss Maggie, Miss Maggie, do you mean to insinuate that I or my wife
Harriet--"

"I don't mean to insinuate anything, because what I say I know. You and
your wife took these things. I knew it at the time; I can prove it now."

"Prove it fourteen years after?"

"Some things do not wear out--jewelry and India shawls, for instance. I
was at the Opera not long since. My sister, who used to come and visit
me so often, is a little in that line, and I used to show her all the
shawls and splendid dresses our mistress used to have. Well, that night
at the Opera we both saw your wife, sitting by you, with the best shawl
the madam had, on her own shoulders. We knew it at a glimpse. There
isn't another just like it to be found in England or America. That
shawl, Matthew Stacy, is worth thousands of dollars, and your wife,
Harriet Long, the cook, was wearing it."

"Margaret! Margaret Casey, you had better take care."

"I have taken care. This woman had a gold-mounted opera-glass in her
hand that we both can swear to. Besides that, she had a little watch at
her side, set thick with diamonds. That watch she took to a jeweller to
be mended. It is in his hands yet. When I leave this seat, it will be my
first business to make sure that she never gets the watch again."

"But it is fourteen years--time enough for anything to be outlawed."

"I have asked about that. Crimes are not like debts--they cannot be
outlawed, Mr. Stacy."

"And you could find it in your heart to hunt down an old sweetheart like
that, providing all you say is true? I wouldn't a believed it of you,
Maggie."

"It seems to me that sweetheart just now refused to lend me twenty-five
pounds."

"Refused! No, he did not refuse."

Matthew caught his breath, and changed his wheedling tone all at once. A
new idea had struck him.

"But, supposing what you say is true, there isn't a