"It is almost enough to make one believe in a God!"

Struck, horrified, she glided anxiously to his side.

"Do not you believe in a God?" she asked.

He was silent.

Amazed, almost frightened, for she had never heard him breathe a word of
scepticism before,--though, to be sure, he had never mentioned the name
of the Deity in her presence,--she stood looking at him like one who had
received a blow; then she said:

"I believe in God. It is my punishment that I do. It is He who wills
blood for blood; who dooms the guilty to a merited death. Oh, if He only
would accept the sacrifice I so willingly offer!--take the life I so
little value, and give me in return----"

"Mansell's?" completed the lawyer, turning upon her in a burst of fury
he no longer had power to suppress. "Is that your cry--always and
forever your cry? You drive me too far, Imogene. This mad and senseless
passion for a man who no longer loves you----"

"Spare me!" rose from her trembling lips. "Let me forget that."

But the great lawyer only laughed.

"You make it worth my while to save you the bitterness of such a
remembrance," he cried. Then, as she remained silent, he changed his
tone to one of careless inquiry, and asked:

"Was it to tell this story of the prisoner having fled from his aunt's
house that you came here to-night?"

Recalled to the purpose of the hour, she answered, hurriedly:

"Not entirely; that story was what Mr. Ferris expected me to testify to
in court this morning. You see for yourself in what a position it would
have put the prisoner."

"And the revelation you have received?" the lawyer coldly urged.

"Was of a deception that has been practised upon me--a base deception by
which I was led to think long ago that Craik Mansell had admitted his
guilt and only trusted to the excellence of his defence to escape
punishment."

"I do not understand," said Mr. Orcutt. "Who could have practised such
deception upon you?"

"The detectives," she murmured; "that rough, heartless fellow they call
Hickory." And, in a burst of indignation, she told how she had been
practised upon, and what the results had been upon her belief, if not
upon the testimony which grew out of that belief.

The lawyer listened with a strange apathy. What would once have aroused
his fiercest indignation and fired him to an exertion of his keenest
powers, fell on him now like the tedious repetition of an old and
worn-out tale. He scarcely looked up when she