o be sure of a fact like this!"

"Imogene, Imogene, would you drive me mad?"

She did not seem to hear.

"Craik, are you guiltless, then?" she was saying. "Is the past all a
dream! Are we two nothing but victims of dread and awful circumstances?
Oh, we will see; life is not ended yet!" And with a burst of hope that
seemed to transfigure her into another woman, she turned toward the
lawyer with the cry: "If he is innocent, he can be saved. Nothing that
has been done by him or me can hurt him if this be so. God who watches
over this crime has His eye on the guilty one. Though his sin be hidden
under a mountain of deceit, it will yet come forth. Guilt like his
cannot remain hidden."

"You did not think this when you faced the court this morning with
perjury on your lips," came in slow, ironical tones from her companion.

"Heaven sometimes accepts a sacrifice," she returned. "But who will
sacrifice himself for a man who could let the trial of one he knew to be
innocent go on unhindered?"

"Who, indeed!" came in almost stifled tones from the lawyer's lips.

"If a stranger and not Craik Mansell slew Mrs. Clemmens," she went on,
"and nothing but an incomprehensible train of coincidences unites him
and me to this act of violence, then may God remember the words of the
widow, and in His almighty power call down such a doom----"

She ended with a gasp. Mr. Orcutt, with a sudden movement, had laid his
hand upon her lips.

"Hush!" he said, "let no curses issue from _your_ mouth. The guilty can
perish without that."

Releasing herself from him in alarm, she drew back, her eyes slowly
dilating as she noted the dead whiteness that had settled over his face,
and taken even the hue of life from his nervously trembling lip.

"Mr. Orcutt," she whispered, with a solemnity which made them heedless
that the lamp which had been burning lower and lower in its socket was
giving out its last fitful rays, "if Craik Mansell did not kill the
Widow Clemmens who then did?"

Her question--or was it her look and tone?--seemed to transfix Mr.
Orcutt. But it was only for a moment. Turning with a slight gesture to
the table at his side, he fumbled with his papers, still oblivious of
the flaring lamp, saying slowly:

"I have always supposed Gouverneur Hildreth to be the true author of
this crime."

"Gouverneur Hildreth?"

Mr. Orcutt bowed.

"I do not agree with you," she returned, moving slowly toward the
window. "I am no reader of hum