is free and independent
country."

A smile, the saddest ever seen, wandered for a minute over the
prisoner's pallid lips. Then he lifted his head and replied with a
certain air of desperation:

"Incrimination is not what I fear now. From the way you all look at me I
perceive that I am lost, for I have no means of proving my story."

This acknowledgment, which might pass for the despairing cry of an
innocent man, made his interrogator stare.

"You forget," suggested that gentleman, "that you had your wife with
you. She can corroborate your words, and will prove herself, no doubt,
an invaluable witness in your favor."

"My wife!" he repeated, choking so that his words could be barely
understood. "Must she be dragged into this--so sick, so weak a woman? It
would kill her, sir. She loves me--she----"

"Was she with you in Mr. Adams's study? Did she see him lift the dagger
against his own breast?"

"No." And with this denial the young man seemed to take new courage.
"She had fainted several moments previously, while the altercation
between my brother and myself was at its height. She did not see the
final act, and--gentlemen, I might as well speak the truth (I have
nothing to gain by silence), she finds it as difficult as you do to
believe that Mr. Adams struck himself. I--I have tried with all my arts
to impress the truth upon her, but oh, what can I hope from the world
when the wife of my bosom--an angel, too, who loves me--oh, sirs, she
can never be a witness for me; she is too conscientious, too true to her
own convictions. I should lose--she would die----"

Mr. Gryce tried to stop him; he would not be stopped.

"Spare me, sirs! Spare my wife! Write me down guilty, anything you
please, rather than force that young creature to speak----"

Here the inspector cut short these appeals which were rending every
heart present. "Have you read the newspapers for the last few days?" he
asked.

"I? Yes, yes, sir. How could I help it? Blood is blood; the man was my
brother; I had left him dying--I was naturally anxious, naturally saw my
own danger, and I read them, of course."

"Then you know he was found with a large cross on his breast, a cross
which was once on the wall. How came it to be torn down? Who put it on
his bosom?"

"I, sir. I am not a Catholic but Felix was, and seeing him dying without
absolution, without extreme unction, I thought of the holy cross, and
tore down the only one I saw, and placed it in h