t that you--" and stopped. "I did not dream that I--" and stopped
again. Suddenly her whole form quivered. "Oh, I see! You have mistrusted
me from the first; the appearances against me have been too strong"; and
she sank inert, lost in the depths of her shame and humiliation. "Ah,
but now I am forsaken!" she murmured.

The appeal went to my heart. Starting forward, I exclaimed: "Miss
Leavenworth, I am but a man; I cannot see you so distressed. Say
that you are innocent, and I will believe you, without regard to
appearances."

Springing erect, she towered upon me. "Can any one look in my face
and accuse me of guilt?" Then, as I sadly shook my head, she hurriedly
gasped: "You want further proof!" and, quivering with an extraordinary
emotion, she sprang to the door.

"Come, then," she cried, "come!" her eyes flashing full of resolve upon
me.

Aroused, appalled, moved in spite of myself, I crossed the room to where
she stood; but she was already in the hall. Hastening after her, filled
with a fear I dared not express, I stood at the foot of the stairs; she
was half-way to the top. Following her into the hall' above, I saw her
form standing erect and noble at the door of her uncle's bedroom.

"Come!" she again cried, but this time in a calm and reverential tone;
and flinging the door open before her, she passed in.

Subduing the wonder which I felt, I slowly followed her. There was no
light in the room of death, but the flame of the gas-burner, at the far
end of the hall, shone weirdly in, and by its glimmering I beheld her
kneeling at the shrouded bed, her head bowed above that of the murdered
man, her hand upon his breast.

"You have said that if I declared my innocence you would believe me,"
she exclaimed, lifting her head as I entered. "See here," and laying
her cheek against the pallid brow of her dead benefactor, she kissed the
clay-cold lips softly, wildly, agonizedly, then, leaping to her feet,
cried, in a subdued but thrilling tone: "Could I do that if I were
guilty? Would not the breath freeze on my lips, the blood congeal in
my veins, and my heart faint at this contact? Son of a father loved and
reverenced, can you believe me to be a woman stained with crime when I
can do this?" and kneeling again she cast her arms over and about that
inanimate form, looking in my face at the same time with an expression
no mortal touch could paint, nor tongue describe.

"In olden times," she went on, "they used to say th