it with her petticoat, which was also of silk and undoubtedly
as well made as many women's dresses. But the skirt of the gown was
longer than the petticoat and she was obliged to pin it up. Having no
pins herself, and finding none on the parlor floor, she went up-stairs
to get some. The door at the head of the stairs was locked, but the
front room was open, so she entered there. Groping her way to the
bureau, for the place was very dark, she found a pin-cushion hanging
from a bracket. Feeling it to be full of pins, and knowing that she
could see nothing where she was, she tore it away and carried it towards
the door. Here there was some light from the skylight over the stairs,
so setting the cushion down on the bed, she pinned up the skirt of her
gown.

When this was done she started away, brushing the cushion off the bed in
her excitement, and fearing to be traced by her many-colored hat, or
having no courage remaining for facing again the horror in the parlor,
she slid out without one and went, God knows whither, in her terror and
remorse.

So much for my theory; now for the facts standing in the way of its
complete acceptance. They were two: the scar on the ankle of the dead
girl, which was a peculiarity of Louise Van Burnam, and the mark of the
rings on her fingers. But who had identified the scar? Her husband. No
one else. And if the other woman had, by some strange freak of chance, a
scar also on her left foot, then the otherwise unaccountable apathy he
had shown at being told of this distinctive mark, as well as his
temerity in afterwards taking it as a basis for his false
identification, becomes equally consistent and natural; and as for the
marks of the rings, it would be strange if such a woman did not wear
rings and plenty of them.

Howard's conduct under examination and the contradiction between his
first assertions and those that followed, all become clear in the light
of this new theory. He had seen his wife kill a defenceless woman
before his eyes, and whether influenced by his old affection for her or
by his pride in her good name, he could not but be anxious to conceal
her guilt even at the cost of his own truthfulness. As long then as
circumstances permitted, he preserved his indifferent attitude, and
denied that the dead woman was his wife. But when driven to the wall by
the indisputable proof which was brought forth of his wife having been
in the place of murder, he saw, or thought he did, that a