an hearts, as all my past history shows,
but something--is it the voice of God in my breast?--tells me that
Gouverneur Hildreth is as innocent as Craik Mansell, and that the true
murderer of Mrs. Clemmens----" Her words ended in a shriek. The light,
which for so long a time had been flickering to its end, had given one
startling flare in which the face of the man before her had flashed on
her view in a ghastly flame that seemed to separate it from all
surrounding objects, then as suddenly gone out, leaving the room in
total darkness.

In the silence that followed, a quick sound as of rushing feet was
heard, then the window was pushed up and the night air came moaning in.
Imogene had fled.

* * * * *

Horace Byrd had not followed Hickory in his rush toward the house. He
had preferred to await results under the great tree which, standing just
inside the gate, cast its mysterious and far-reaching shadow widely over
the wintry lawn. He was, therefore, alone during most of the interview
which Miss Dare held with Mr. Orcutt in the library, and, being alone,
felt himself a prey to his sensations and the weirdness of the situation
in which he found himself.

Though no longer a victim to the passion with which Miss Dare had at
first inspired him, he was by no means without feeling for this grand if
somewhat misguided woman, and his emotions, as he stood there awaiting
the issue of her last desperate attempt to aid the prisoner, were strong
enough to make any solitude welcome, though this solitude for some
reason held an influence which was any thing but enlivening, if it was
not actually depressing, to one of his ready sensibilities.

The tree under which he had taken his stand was, as I have intimated, an
old one. It had stood there from time immemorial, and was, as I have
heard it since said, at once the pride of Mr. Orcutt's heart and the
chief ornament of his grounds. Though devoid of foliage at the time,
its vast and symmetrical canopy of interlacing branches had caught Mr.
Byrd's attention from the first moment of his entrance beneath it, and,
preoccupied as he was, he could not prevent his thoughts from reverting
now and then with a curious sensation of awe to the immensity of those
great limbs which branched above him. His imagination was so powerfully
affected at last, he had a notion of leaving the spot and seeking a
nearer look-out in the belt of evergreens that hid the crouching fo