k, unfastened the yard door, and
fled from the house. Knowing him, as you and I know him, can we wonder
at it? Many a man has been hanged for murder, on circumstantial evidence
less direct than the evidence against poor Miles. His horror of his own
recollections was so overpowering that he forbade me even to mention the
inn at Zeeland in my letters, while he was abroad. 'Never tell me (he
wrote) who that wretched murdered stranger was, if I only heard of
his name, I believe it would haunt me to my dying day. I ought not to
trouble you with these details--and yet, I am surely not without excuse.
In the absence of any proof, I cannot expect you to believe as I do in
my brother's innocence. But I may at least hope to show you that there
is some reason for doubt. Will you give him the benefit of that doubt?"

"Willingly!" Emily replied. "Am I right in supposing that you don't
despair of proving his innocence, even yet'?"

"I don't quite despair. But my hopes have grown fainter and fainter,
as the years have gone on. There is a person associated with his escape
from Zeeland; a person named Jethro--"

"You mean Miss Jethro!"

"Yes. Do you know her?"

"I know her--and my father knew her. I have found a letter, addressed
to him, which I have no doubt was written by Miss Jethro. It is barely
possible that you may understand what it means. Pray look at it."

"I am quite unable to help you," Mrs. Delvin answered, after reading the
letter. "All I know of Miss Jethro is that, but for her interposition,
my brother might have fallen into the hands of the police. She saved
him."

"Knowing him, of course?"

"That is the remarkable part of it: they were perfect strangers to each
other."

"But she must have had some motive."

"_There_ is the foundation of my hope for Miles. Miss Jethro declared,
when I wrote and put the question to her, that the one motive by which
she was actuated was the motive of mercy. I don't believe her. To my
mind, it is in the last degree improbable that she would consent to
protect a stranger from discovery, who owned to her (as my brother did)
that he was a fugitive suspected of murder. She knows something, I am
firmly convinced, of that dreadful event at Zeeland--and she has some
reason for keeping it secret. Have you any influence over her?"

"Tell me where I can find her."

"I can't tell you. She has removed from the address at which my brother
saw her last. He has made every possible inquiry--