t equal quietness.

"No; I have told Mr. Ferris; is not that enough?"

But he did not consider it so. "Ferris is a District Attorney," said he,
"and has demanded your confidence for the purposes of justice, while I
am your friend. The action you have taken is peculiar, and you may need
advice. But how can I give it or how can you receive it unless there is
a complete understanding between us?"

Struck in spite of herself, moved perhaps by a hope she had not allowed
herself to contemplate before, she looked at him long and earnestly.

"And do you really wish to help me?" she inquired. "Are you so generous
as to forgive the pain, and possibly the humiliation, I have inflicted
upon you, and lend me your assistance in case my testimony works its due
effect, and he be brought to trial instead of Mr. Hildreth?"

It was a searching and a pregnant question, for which Mr. Orcutt was
possibly not fully prepared, but his newly gained control did not give
way.

"I must insist upon hearing the facts before I say any thing of my
intentions," he averred. "Whatever they may be, they cannot be more
startling in their character than those which have been urged against
Hildreth."

"But they are," she whispered. Then with a quick look around her, she
put her mouth close to Mr. Orcutt's ear and breathed:

"Mr. Hildreth is not the only man who, unseen by the neighbors, visited
Mrs. Clemmens' house on the morning of the murder. Craik Mansell was
there also."

"Craik Mansell! How do you know that? Ah," he pursued, with the scornful
intonation of a jealous man, "I forgot that you are lovers."

The sneer, natural as it was, perhaps, seemed to go to her heart and
wake its fiercest indignation.

"Hush," cried she, towering upon him with an ominous flash of her proud
eye. "Do not turn the knife in _that_ wound or you will seal my lips
forever." And she moved hastily away from his side. But in another
instant she determinedly returned, saying: "This is no time for
indulging in one's sensibilities. I affirm that Craik Mansell visited
his aunt on that day, because the ring which was picked up on the floor
of her dining-room--you remember the ring, Mr. Orcutt?"

Remember it! Did he not? All his many perplexities in its regard crowded
upon him as he made a hurried bow of acquiescence.

"It belonged to him," she continued. "He had bought it for me, or,
rather, had had the diamond reset for me--it had been his mother's. Only
the day before