erson directly benefited by his death."

Captain Carroll looked at him steadily, and then rose to his feet. "Do
I understand that you have called me here to listen to this infamous
aspersion of a lady?"

"I have called you here, Captain Carroll, to listen to the arguments
that may be used to set aside Dr. West's will, and return the property
to the legal heir. You are to listen to them or not, as you choose;
but I warn you that your opportunity to hear them in confidence and
convey them to your friend will end here. I have no opinion in the
case. I only tell you that it will be argued that Dr. West was unduly
influenced to make a will in Mrs. Saltonstall's favor; that, after
having done so, it will be shown that, just before his death, he became
aware of the existence of his son and heir, and actually had an
interview with him; that he visited Mrs. Saltonstall that evening, with
the records of his son's identity and a memorandum of his interview in
his pocket-book; and that, an hour after leaving the house, he was
foully murdered. That is the theory which Mrs. Saltonstall has to
consider. I told you I have no opinion. I only know that there are
witnesses to the interview of the Doctor and his son; there is evidence
of murder, and the murderer is suspected; there is the evidence of the
pocket-book, with the memorandum picked up on the spot, which you
handed me yourself."

"Do you mean to say that you will permit this pocketbook, handed you in
confidence, to be used for such an infamous purpose?" said Carroll.

"I think you offered it to me in exchange for Dr. West's letters to
Mrs. Saltonstall," returned Prince, dryly. "The less said about that,
the less is likely to be said about compromising letters written by the
widow to the Doctor, which she got you to recover--letters which they
may claim had a bearing on the case, and even lured him to his fate."

For an instant Captain Carroll recoiled before the gulf which seemed to
open at the feet of the unhappy family. For an instant a terrible
doubt possessed him, and in that doubt he found a new reason for a
certain changed and altered tone in Maruja's later correspondence with
him, and the vague hints she had thrown out of the impossibility of
their union. "I beg you will not press me to greater candor," she had
written, "and try to forget me before you learn to hate me." For an
instant he believed--and even took a miserable comfort in the
belief--that it wa