z on the bridge of his nose, giving him a keener and
rather more intelligent appearance.

"Excuse me," he exclaimed, suddenly twisting his ring again round his
finger. "I've just thought of something else. I won't be a moment,"
and he rushed from the library and ran upstairs to the floor above.

His absence gave me an opportunity to re-examine the little object
which I had picked up from the floor at the earlier stages of the
inquiry; and advancing to the window I took it from my pocket and
looked again at it, utterly confounded.

Its appearance presented nothing extraordinary, for it was merely a
soft piece of hard-knotted cream-coloured chenille about half-an-inch
long. But sight of it lying in the palm of my hand held me spellbound
in horror.

It told me the awful truth. It was nothing less than a portion of the
fringe of the cream shawl which my love had been wearing, and just as
chenille fringes will come to pieces, it had become detached and
fallen where she had stood at that spot beside the victim's bed.

There was a smear of blood upon it.

I recollected her strangely nervous manner, her anxiety to ascertain
what clue we had discovered and to know the opinion of the police.
Yes, if guilt were ever written upon a woman's face, it was upon hers.

Should I show the tiny fragment to my friend? Should I put it into his
hands and tell him the bitter truth--the truth that I believed my love
to be a murderess?

CHAPTER IX.

SHADOWS.

The revelation held me utterly dumfounded.

Already I had, by placing my hand in contact with the shawl,
ascertained its exact texture, and saw that both its tint and its
fabric were unquestionably the same as the knotted fragment I held in
my hand. Chenille shawls, as every woman knows, must be handled
carefully or the lightly-made fringe will come asunder; for the kind
of cord of floss silk is generally made upon a single thread, which
will break with the slightest strain.

By some means the shawl in question had accidentally become
entangled--or perhaps been strained by the sudden uplifting of the arm
of the wearer. In any case the little innocent-looking fragment had
snapped, and dropped at the bedside of the murdered man.

The grave suspicions of Ethelwynn which I had held on the previous
night when she endeavoured to justify her sister's neglect again
crowded upon me, and Sir Bernard's hint at the secret of her past
thrust the iron deeply into my heart.

My