stically asked.

She started back.

"I laugh at the inconsistency of women," he cried. "You have sacrificed
every thing, even risked your life for a man you really believe guilty
of crime; yet if another man similarly stained asked you for your
compassion only, you would fly from him as from a pestilence."

But no words he could utter of this sort were able to raise any emotion
in her now.

"Mr. Orcutt," she demanded, "do _you_ believe Craik Mansell innocent?"

His old mocking smile came back.

"Have I conducted his case as if I believed him guilty?" he asked.

"No, no; but you are his lawyer; you are bound not to let your real
thoughts appear. But in your secret heart you did not, could not,
believe he was free from a crime to which he is linked by so many
criminating circumstances?"

But his strange smile remaining unchanged, she seemed to waken to a
sudden doubt, and leaping impetuously to his side, laid her hand on his
arm and exclaimed:

"Oh, sir, if you have ever cherished one hope of his innocence, no
matter how faint or small, tell me of it, even if this last disclosure
has convinced you of its folly!"

Giving her an icy look, he drew his arm slowly from her grasp and
replied:

"Mr. Mansell has never been considered guilty by me."

"Never?"

"Never."

"Not even now?"

"Not even now."

It seemed as if she could not believe his words.

"And yet you know all there is against him; all that I do now!"

"I know he visited his aunt's house at or after the time she was
murdered, but that is no proof he killed her, Miss Dare."

"No," she admitted with slow conviction, "no. But why did he fly in that
wild way when he left it? Why did he go straight to Buffalo and not wait
to give me the interview he promised?"

"Shall I tell you?" Mr. Orcutt inquired, with a dangerous sneer on his
lips. "Do you wish to know why this man--the man you have so loved--the
man for whom you would die this moment, has conducted himself with such
marked discretion?"

"Yes," came like a breath from between Imogene's parted lips.

"Well," said the lawyer, dropping his words with cruel clearness, "Mr.
Mansell has a great faith in women. He has such faith in you, Imogene
Dare, he thinks you are all you declare yourself to be; that in the hour
you stood up before the court and called yourself a murderer, you spoke
but the truth; that----" He stopped; even his scornful _aplomb_ would
not allow him to go on in the face of t