cene before me, I was pleased to find you
accept a contrary one; as in this way both theories had a chance of
being tested; as was right in a case of so much mystery. You accordingly
took up the affair with one idea for your starting-point, and I with
another. You saw every fact as it developed through the medium of Mary's
belief in Eleanore's guilt, and I through the opposite. And what has
been the result? With you, doubt, contradiction, constant unsettlement,
and unwarranted resorts to strange sources for reconcilement between
appearances and your own convictions; with me, growing assurance, and
a belief which each and every development so far has but served to
strengthen and make more probable."

Again that wild panorama of events, looks, and words swept before me.
Mary's reiterated assertions of her cousin's innocence, Eleanore's
attitude of lofty silence in regard to certain matters which might be
considered by her as pointing towards the murderer.

"Your theory must be the correct one," I finally admitted; "it was
undoubtedly Eleanore who spoke. She believes in Mary's guilt, and I have
been blind, indeed, not to have seen it from the first."

"If Eleanore Leavenworth believes in her cousin's criminality, she must
have some good reasons for doing so."

I was obliged to admit that too. "She did not conceal in her bosom that
telltale key,--found who knows where?--and destroy, or seek to destroy,
it and the letter which introduced her cousin to the public as the
unprincipled destroyer of a trusting man's peace, for nothing." "No,
no."

"And yet you, a stranger, a young man who have never seen Mary
Leavenworth in any other light than that in which her coquettish nature
sought to display itself, presume to say she is innocent, in the face of
the attitude maintained from the first by her cousin!"

"But," said I, in my great unwillingness to accept his conclusions,
"Eleanore Leavenworth is but mortal. She may have been mistaken in her
inferences. She has never stated what her suspicion was founded upon;
nor can we know what basis she has for maintaining the attitude you
speak of. Clavering is as likely as Mary to be the assassin, for all we
know, and possibly for all she knows."

"You seem to be almost superstitious in your belief in Clavering's
guilt."

I recoiled. Was I? Could it be that Mr. Harwell's fanciful conviction in
regard to this man had in any way influenced me to the detriment of my
better judgment?