not?" inquired Mr. Ferris. Then, as he
saw she did not heed, added: "I hope you remember what passed between
you two on that day?"

As if struck by a thought which altered the whole atmosphere of her
hopes and feelings, she took a step forward with a power and vigor that
recalled to mind the Imogene of old.

"Sir," she exclaimed, "let that man turn around and face me!"

Hickory at once rose.

"Tell me," she demanded, surveying him with a look it took all his
well-known hardihood to sustain unmoved, "was it all false--all a trick
from the beginning to the end? I received a letter--was that written by
your hand too? Are you capable of forgery as well as of other
deceptions?"

The detective, who knew no other way to escape from his embarrassment,
uttered a short laugh. But finding a reply was expected of him, answered
with well-simulated indifference:

"No, only the address on the envelope was mine; the letter was one which
Mr. Mansell had written but never sent. I found it in his waste-paper
basket in Buffalo."

"Ah! and you could make use of that?"

"I know it was a mean trick," he acknowledged, dropping his eyes from
her face. "But things do look different when you are in the thick of 'em
than when you take a stand and observe them from the outside. I--I was
ashamed of it long ago, Miss Dare"--this was a lie; Hickory never was
really ashamed of it--"and would have told you about it, but I thought
'mum' was the word after a scene like that."

She did not seem to hear him.

"Then Mr. Mansell did not send me the letter inviting me to meet him in
the hut on a certain day, some few weeks after Mrs. Clemmens was
murdered?"

"No."

"Nor know that such a letter had been sent?"

"No."

"Nor come, as I supposed he did, to Sibley? nor admit what I supposed he
admitted in my hearing? nor listen, as I supposed he did, to the
insinuations I made use of in the hut?"

"No."

Imbued with sudden purpose and energy, she turned upon the District
Attorney.

"Oh, what a revelation to come to me now!" she murmured.

Mr. Ferris bowed.

"You are right," he assented; "it should have come to you before. But I
can only repeat what I have previously said, that if I had known of this
deception myself, you would have been notified of it previous to going
upon the stand. For your belief in the prisoner's guilt has necessarily
had its effect upon the jury, and I cannot but see how much that belief
must have been strengthene