be identified and traced to him. But a woman was
different, especially such a woman as Paul's mother. Of course, there
were motives which she could not understand, thoughts in her mind which
were yet hidden from her; but this was the key, this would unlock the
door of the mystery, and this would save her lover's life. No, no;
much as Paul might love his mother, much as he owed to her, she could
not allow him to suffer death in his mother's stead. It was too
horrible.

She called to mind the scene she had witnessed that morning. She
remembered being startled by the face of the woman who found her way
into the court. She had seen the look of madness in her eyes as she
looked first at Paul and then at her father. After which she uttered
the scream of a maniac and then fell to the ground.

Another thought struck her. Was Paul's mother sane? Would not this
account for the difficulties which, in spite of everything, she could
not explain away? If she were mad, and carried away by the passion
which had been aroused by Wilson's attack on her son, would she not,
regardless of consequences, commit this deed of which Paul was accused?

Again and again she considered the circumstances, pondered over each
fact, weighed every scrap of evidence which had been adduced; and the
more she thought about it the more she was convinced that she had
arrived at the truth. By and by, however, the terror of the whole
tragic scene came home to her. What would Paul think of her if she
were instrumental in bringing his mother to the gallows? Even his love
could not bear that test. But she would do it. Rather than see Paul
die a thousand should die; for while a woman's love is the most
beautiful and the most holy thing on earth, it is also the most
merciless and the most pitiless. And at that moment no pity for others
entered the heart of Mary Bolitho. Her one thought was of Paul.

No thought of sleep was possible. Every faculty was awake, every nerve
in tension. During the years in which she had been interested in her
father's work she had, out of pure curiosity, and because of her love
of intellectual problems, studied the cases with which he had been
connected, and her knowledge of the intricacies of the law and of the
value of evidence came to her aid now. All she had was laid at Paul's
feet. It was for him she must think, for him she must work.

But she must do something. She must test her theories. Surmises,
however