udicious of his
auditors calmly weighed these assertions against the evidence that had
been advanced, and finding the result unsatisfactory, shook their heads
as if unconvinced, and awaited further developments.

They did not come. The inquiry had reached its climax, and little, if
any thing, more was left to be said. Mr. Hildreth was examined more
fully, and some few of the witnesses who had been heard in the early
part of the day were recalled, but no new facts came to light, and no
fresh inquiries were started.

Mr. Byrd, who from the attitude of the coroner could not fail to see Mr.
Hildreth was looked upon with a suspicion that would ultimately end in
arrest, decided that his interest in the inquest was at an end, and
being greatly fatigued, gave up his position at the window and quietly
stole away.

X.

THE FINAL TEST.

Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue,
in order that they should see twice as much as
they say.--COLTON.

THE fact was, he wanted to think. Detective though he was and accustomed
to the bravado with which every sort of criminal will turn to meet their
fate when fully driven to bay, there had been something in the final
manner of this desperate but evidently cultured gentleman, which had
impressed him against his own will, and made him question whether the
suspected man was not rather the victim of a series of extraordinary
circumstances, than the selfish and brutal criminal which the evidence
given seemed to suggest.

Not that Mr. Byrd ever allowed his generous heart to blind him to the
plain language of facts. His secret and not to be smothered doubts in
another direction were proof enough of this; and had it not been for
those very doubts, the probabilities are that he would have agreed with
the cooler-headed portion of the crowd, which listened unmoved to that
last indignant burst of desperate manhood.

But with those doubts still holding possession of his mind, he could not
feel so sure of Mr. Hildreth's guilt; and the struggle that was likely
to ensue between his personal feelings on the one side and his sense of
duty on the other did not promise to be so light as to make it possible
for him to remain within eye and earshot of an unsympathetic crowd.

"If only the superintendent had not left it to my judgment to
interfere," thought he, pacing the streets with ever-increasing
uneasiness, "the responsibility would have been shifted from