e--are your
friends in town, or are you here alone?"

"I am here alone. Nay, I am not mad, Colonel Thornton, although your
looks betray that you think me so."

"No, no, not mad, only indisposed," said the colonel, in no degree
modifying his opinion.

"Colonel Thornton, if there is anything strange and eccentric in my
looks and manner, you must set it down to the strangeness of the
position in which I am placed."

"My dear young lady, Miss Thornton is at the hotel to-day. Will you
permit me to take you to her?"

"You will do as you please, Colonel Thornton, after you shall have heard
my testimony and examined the proofs I have to lay before you. Then I
shall permit you to judge of my soundness of mind as you will,
premising, however, that my sanity or insanity can have no possible
effect upon the proofs that I submit," she said, laying a packet upon
the table between them.

Something in her manner now compelled the magistrate to give her words
an attention for which he blamed himself, as for a gross wrong, toward
his favorite clergyman.

"Do I understand you to charge Mr. Willcoxen with the death of Miss
Mayfield?"

"Yes," said Miriam, bowing her head.

"What cause, young lady, can you possibly have for making such a
monstrous and astounding accusation?"

"I came here for the purpose of telling you, if you will permit me. Nor
do I, since you doubt my reason, ask you to believe my statement,
unsupported by proof."

"Go on, young lady; I am all attention."

"Will you administer the usual oath?"

"No, Miss Shields; I will hear your story first in the capacity of
friend."

"And you think that the only capacity in which you will be called upon
to act? Well, may Heaven grant it," said Miriam, and she began and told
him all the facts that had recently come to her knowledge, ending by
placing the packet of letters in his hands.

While she spoke, Colonel Thornton's pen was busy making minutes of her
statements; when she had concluded, he laid down the pen, and turning to
her, asked:

"You believe, then, that Mr. Willcoxen committed this murder?"

"I know not--I act only upon the evidence."

"Circumstantial evidence, often as delusive as it is fatal! Do you think
it possible that Mr. Willcoxen could have meditated such a crime?"

"No, no, no, no! never meditated it! If he committed it, it was
unpremeditated, unintentional; the accident of some lover's quarrel,
some frenzy of passion, jealousy--I know not