usual calm
self-possession glided down the length of that elegant apartment to his
side, that she had just come from a small room on the top floor, where,
in the position of a hired seamstress, she had been engaged in cutting
out the wedding garments of one of the daughters of the house.

Her greeting was that of a person attempting to feign a surprise she did
not feel.

"Ah," said she, "Mr. Ferris! This is an unexpected pleasure."

But Mr. Ferris had no heart for courtesies.

"Miss Dare," he began, without any of the preliminaries which might be
expected of him, "I have come upon a disagreeable errand. I have a favor
to ask. You are in the possession of a piece of information which it is
highly necessary for me to share."

"I?"

The surprise betrayed in this single word was no more than was to be
expected from a lady thus addressed, neither did the face she turned so
steadily toward him alter under his searching gaze.

"If I can tell you any thing that you wish to know," she quietly
declared, "I am certainly ready to do so, sir."

Deceived by the steadiness of her tone and the straightforward look of
her eyes, he proceeded, with a sudden releasement from his
embarrassment, to say:

"I shall have to recall to your mind a most painful incident. You
remember, on the morning when we met at Mrs. Clemmens' house, claiming
as your own a diamond ring which was picked up from the floor at your
feet?"

"I do."

"Miss Dare, was this ring really yours, or were you misled by its
appearance into merely thinking it your property? My excuse for asking
this is that the ring, if not yours, is likely to become an important
factor in the case to which the murder of this unfortunate woman has
led."

"Sir----" The pause which followed the utterance of this one word was
but momentary, but in it what faint and final hope may have gone down
into the depths of everlasting darkness God only knows. "Sir, since you
ask me the question, I will say that in one sense of the term it was
mine, and in another it was not. The ring was mine, because it had been
offered to me as a gift the day before. The ring was not mine, because I
had refused to take it when it was offered."

At these words, spoken with such quietness they seemed like the
mechanical utterances of a woman in a trance, Mr. Ferris started to his
feet. He could no longer doubt that evidence of an important nature lay
before him.

"And may I ask," he inquired, without an