tside her sister's
window, she did it by means of the communicating door."

"But the door was found locked on this side. There is the key in the lock
now."

"You are sure of this?"

"I was the first one to call attention to it."

"Then," began the lawyer judicially, but stopped as he noted the peculiar
eagerness of Ransom's expression, and turned his attention instead to the
interior of the room and the various articles belonging to Mrs. Ransom
which were to be seen in it. "The dress your wife wore when she signed
her will," he remarked, pointing to the light green gown hanging on the
inside of the door by which they had entered.

Ransom stepped up to it, but did not touch it. He could see her as she
looked in this gown in her memorable passage through the hall the evening
before, and, recalling her expression, wondered if they yet understood
the nature of her purpose and the determination which gave it such
extraordinary vigor.

Mr. Harper called his attention to two other articles of dress hanging in
another part of the room. These were her long gray rain-coat and the hat
and veil she had worn on the train.

"She went out bare-headed and in the plain serge dress in which she
arrived," remarked Mr. Harper with a side glance at Ransom. "I wonder if
the girl met on the highway was without hat and dressed in black serge."

Ransom was silent.

"Anitra's hat is below and here is Mrs. Ransom's. She who escaped from
this house last night went out bare-headed," repeated the lawyer.

Mr. Ransom, moving aside to avoid the probing of the other's eye, merely
remarked:

"You noticed my wife's dress very particularly it seems. It was of serge,
you say."

"Yes. I am learned in stuffs. I remarked it when she got into the coach,
possibly because I was struck by its simplicity and conventional make.
There was no trimming on the bottom, only stitching. Her sister's was
just like it. They had the look of being ready-made."

"But Anitra had no rain-coat. I remember that her shoulders were wet when
she came in from the lane."

"No, she had no protection but her blouse, black like her dress. I
presume that her hot blood resented every kind of wrap."

Again that sidelong glance from his keen eye. "She wore a checked silk
handkerchief about her neck--the one she afterwards put over her head."

"You were on the same train with my wife and sister-in-law," Ransom now
said. "Did you sit near them? Converse with them, that is, w