uston Simms killed by two men, one of whom, the negro Thad,
you knew. The white man's face was covered. You did not recognize him.
But he knew you, and the surest way to compel you to silence. I wish you
now to state to me all the details of this man's appearance, voice, and
manner, to show me any letters which you have received from him since"
(a random guess, which I saw hit the mark)--"in short, every
circumstance which you can recall about him."

She did not reply.

"My dear Miss Waring, you need have no fear on Colonel Merrick's
account. The law has taken this matter out of your hands. Colonel
Merrick is protected by the law."

"Oh! I did not understand," meekly.

To be brief, she told me the whole story. When she reached the spring
she had found the old man bleeding and still breathing. He died in her
arms. The men, who had gone back into the laurel to open the valise,
came back upon her. The negro was a desperate character, well known in
the county. He had died two years later. The other man was masked and
thoroughly disguised. He had stopped the negro when he would have killed
her, and after a few minutes' consultation had whispered to him the
terms upon which she was allowed to escape.

"You did not hear the white man's voice?"

"Not once."

"Bring me the letters you have received from him."

She brought two miserably spelled and written scrawls on soiled bits of
paper. It was the writing of an educated man, poorly disguised. He
threatened to meet her speedily, warned her that he had spies constantly
about her.

"That is all the evidence you can give me?"

"All." She rose to go. I held the door open for her, when she hesitated.

"There was something more--a mere trifle."

"Yes. But most likely the one thing that I want."

"I returned to the spring again and again for months afterward. People
thought I was mad. I may have been; but I found there one day a bit of
reddish glass with a curious mark on it."

"You have it here?"

She brought it to me. It was a fragment of engraved sardonyx, apparently
part of a seal; the upper part of a head was cut upon it; the short
hairs curving forward on the low forehead showed that the head was that
of Hercules.

Some old recollection rose in my brain, beginning, as I may say, to
gnaw uncertainly. I went to my room for a few minutes to collect myself,
and then sought Beardsley.

He was pacing up and down the walk to the stables, agitated as though he
had