mother,
apparently an every-day lad, but really as fine a piece of manhood as
the world turns out. Anyhow, I came to that conclusion about him when I
had studied him through the documents. What luck threw him between the
foul jaws of his wife I can't say. She was a----"

The detective coughed before uttering the word, and looked at the men as
he changed the form of his sentence.

"She was a cruel creature. He adored her, and she hated him, and when he
was gone slandered him with a laugh, and defiled his honest name."

"Oh," cried Honora with a gasp of pain, "can there be such women now? I
have read of them in history, but I always felt they were far off----"

"I hope they are not many," said the Captain politely, "but in my
profession I have met them. Here was a case where the best of men was
the victim of an Agrippina."

"Poor, dear lad," sighed she, "and of course he fled from her in
horror."

"He was a wonder, Miss Ledwith. Think what he did. Such a man is more
than a match for such a woman. He discovered her unfaithfulness months
before he disappeared. Then he sold all his property, turning all he
owned into money, and transferred it beyond any reach but his own,
leaving his wife just what she brought him--an income from her parents
of fifteen hundred a year: a mere drop to a woman whom he had dowered
with a share in one hundred thousand. Though I could not follow the
tracks of his feet, I saw the traces of his thoughts as he executed his
scheme of vengeance. He discovered her villainy, he would have no
scandal, he was disgusted with life, so he dropped out of it with the
prize for which she had married him, and left her like a famished wolf
in the desert. It would have satisfied him to have seen her rage and
dismay, but he was not one of the kind that enjoys torture."

"I watched Mrs. Tom for months, and felt she was the nearest thing to a
demon I had ever met. Well, I worked hard to find Tom. We tried many
tricks to lure him from his hiding-place, if it were near by, and we
followed many a false trail into foreign lands. The result was dreadful
to me. We found nothing. When a child was born to him, and the fact
advertised, and still he did not appear, or give the faintest sign, I
surrendered. It would be tedious to describe for you how I followed the
sales of his property, how I examined his last traces, how I pursued all
clues, how I wore myself out with study. At the last I gave out
altogether and cut t