e. It was not easy to pick one's steps, but, on the
whole, I was inclined to dismiss the idea that there had been anything
between the Colonel and Miss Morrison, but more than ever convinced that
the young lady held the clue as to what it was which had turned Mrs.
Barclay to hatred of her husband. I took the obvious course, therefore,
of calling upon Miss M., of explaining to her that I was perfectly
certain that she held the facts in her possession, and of assuring her
that her friend, Mrs. Barclay, might find herself in the dock upon a
capital charge unless the matter were cleared up.

"Miss Morrison is a little ethereal slip of a girl, with timid eyes
and blond hair, but I found her by no means wanting in shrewdness and
common-sense. She sat thinking for some time after I had spoken, and
then, turning to me with a brisk air of resolution, she broke into a
remarkable statement which I will condense for your benefit.

"'I promised my friend that I would say nothing of the matter, and a
promise is a promise,' said she; 'but if I can really help her when
so serious a charge is laid against her, and when her own mouth, poor
darling, is closed by illness, then I think I am absolved from my
promise. I will tell you exactly what happened upon Monday evening.

"'We were returning from the Watt Street Mission about a quarter to nine
o'clock. On our way we had to pass through Hudson Street, which is
a very quiet thoroughfare. There is only one lamp in it, upon the
left-hand side, and as we approached this lamp I saw a man coming
towards us with his back very bent, and something like a box slung over
one of his shoulders. He appeared to be deformed, for he carried his
head low and walked with his knees bent. We were passing him when he
raised his face to look at us in the circle of light thrown by the lamp,
and as he did so he stopped and screamed out in a dreadful voice, "My
God, it's Nancy!" Mrs. Barclay turned as white as death, and would have
fallen down had the dreadful-looking creature not caught hold of her. I
was going to call for the police, but she, to my surprise, spoke quite
civilly to the fellow.

"'"I thought you had been dead this thirty years, Henry," said she, in a
shaking voice.

"'"So I have," said he, and it was awful to hear the tones that he said
it in. He had a very dark, fearsome face, and a gleam in his eyes that
comes back to me in my dreams. His hair and whiskers were shot with
gray, and his face