crap of the belongings of both the fugitives.
"I can understand this wretched Leah, now," said Atwater. "She would
have been Braun's willing tool in hiding his final murder of Irma
Gluyas. Braun needed her aid, and would have given her the slave's
dole of comfort. But this beautiful wanderer! She hails with delight
her return to America! Is it her frantic desire for vengeance? She
had learned to love poor Clayton! And her whole soul is fixed on
Braun expiating the murder. Prison she fears not."

Neither man knew of the singer's fear lest an Austrian dungeon
might open its iron cells to her, should Braun be discovered to be
the fugitive Hugo Landor.

"No one can read a woman's heart!" mused McNerney. "Judges and
juries, the journals and the public, fancy these poor wretches,
hunted down for their beauty, are different from their more
fortunate sisters. I've not found it so. There's some womanhood
left in every one of them, and there are manifold temptations and
weaknesses in the lives of many who walk serenely in honor. At the
last, all men and women are much the same; only, once started on
the downward path, not one in a thousand ever is checked!

"This Irma is not such a bad woman; with a better chance she might
have been some one's heart darling for all time. The only thing I
cannot see is how Braun killed this man so quietly."

Both of the friends had discerned no more than the final trap. The
fatal lure of Irma Gluyas' beauty!

Braun, at last becoming distrustful of the woman whose heart was
rebaptized in love, had acted on the moment, and his crafty advantage
was taken of Clayton's headlong passion.

"It is clear poor Leah was only used as a stool-pigeon; she is far
too cowardly to harm the meanest creature," said Atwater. "In some
way, Braun must have given Clayton a stupefying poison, and then
strangled him.

"In that lonely place, he undoubtedly hid the body and had it
thrown overboard later. Of course, it was probably hidden in some
case or box, perhaps a great trunk, and then cast into the bay by
others. One thing is sure, we will never know from this brute's
confession. He will die mute."

"You are right," said McNerney; "for he will go grimly silent to
the chair, a thug and a murderer, in heart and soul.

"This fellow could have prospered in any decent line of life! He
is only one more to make the bitter discovery THAT CRIME DOES NOT
PAY! It is both stupid and useless. But the criminal on