re present, then," observed Mr. Ferris, with a meaning glance at
the detective.

"I was present," he returned, with a look the District Attorney did not
find it difficult to understand.

"Is there any thing you ought to tell me?" Mr. Ferris inquired, when a
moment or so later the coroner had been drawn away by a friend.

"I do not know," said Byrd. "Of the conversation that passed between
Miss Dare and Mr. Orcutt, but a short portion came to our ears. It is
her manner, her actions, that have astonished us, and made us anxious to
have you upon the spot." And he told with what an expression of fear she
had fled from her interview with Mr. Orcutt in the library, and then
gave, as nearly as he could, an account of what had passed between them
before the falling of the fatal limb. Finally he said: "Hickory and I
expected to find her lying crushed and bleeding beneath, but instead of
that, no sooner was the bough lifted than she sprang to her knees, and
seeing Mr. Orcutt lying before her insensible, bent over him with that
same expression of breathless awe and expectation which you see in her
now. It looks as if she were waiting for him to rouse and finish the
sentence that was cut short by this catastrophe."

"And what was that sentence?"

"As near as I can recollect, it was this: 'If any man suffers for this
crime it shall not be Craik Mansell, but----' He did not have time to
say whom."

"My poor friend!" ejaculated Mr. Ferris, "cut down in the exercise of
his duties! It is a mysterious providence--a very mysterious
providence!" And crossing again to the sick-room, he went sadly in.

He found the aspect unchanged. On the pillow the same white, immovable
face; at the bedside the same constant and expectant watchers. Imogene
especially seemed scarcely to have made a move in all the time of his
absence. Like a marble image watching over a form of clay she sat
silent, breathless, intent--a sight to draw all eyes and satisfy none;
for her look was not one of grief, nor of awe, nor of hope, yet it had
that within it which made her presence there seem a matter of right even
to those who did not know the exact character of the bond which united
her to the unhappy sufferer.

Mr. Ferris, who had been only too ready to accept Mr. Byrd's explanation
of her conduct, allowed himself to gaze at her unhindered.

Overwhelmed, as he was, by the calamity which promised to rob the Bar
of one of its most distinguished advocates, and