ecur to my mind whenever I
asked myself who this person could be.

Not that, without the light which had been thrown upon the affair by
Eleanore's strange behavior, I should have selected this man as one in
any way open to suspicion; the peculiarity of his manner at the inquest
not being marked enough to counteract the improbability of one in his
relations to the deceased finding sufficient motive for a crime so
manifestly without favorable results to himself. But if love had entered
as a factor into the affair, what might not be expected? James Harwell,
simple amanuensis to a retired tea-merchant, was one man; James Harwell,
swayed by passion for a woman beautiful as Eleanore Leavenworth, was
another; and in placing him upon the list of those parties open to
suspicion I felt I was only doing what was warranted by a proper
consideration of probabilities.

But, between casual suspicion and actual proof, what a gulf! To believe
James Harwell capable of guilt, and to find evidence enough to accuse
him of it, were two very different things. I felt myself instinctively
shrink from the task, before I had fully made up my mind to attempt it;
some relenting thought of his unhappy position, if innocent, forcing
itself upon me, and making my very distrust of him seem personally
ungenerous if not absolutely unjust. If I had liked the man better, I
should not have been so ready to look upon him with doubt.

But Eleanore must be saved at all hazards. Once delivered up to the
blight of suspicion, who could tell what the result might be? the arrest
of her person perhaps,--a thing which, once accomplished, would cast a
shadow over her young life that it would take more than time to dispel.
The accusation of an impecunious secretary would be less horrible than
this. I determined to make an early call upon Mr. Gryce.

Meanwhile the contrasted pictures of Eleanore standing with her hand
upon the breast of the dead, her face upraised and mirroring a glory,
I could not recall without emotion; and Mary, fleeing a short half-hour
later indignantly from her presence, haunted me and kept me awake long
after midnight. It was like a double vision of light and darkness that,
while contrasting, neither assimilated nor harmonized. I could not flee
from it. Do what I would, the two pictures followed me, filling my soul
with alternate hope and distrust, till I knew not whether to place my
hand with Eleanore on the breast of the dead, and swear impl