y with which
she sought to save you yesterday morning."

"Perjury?" escaped involuntarily from Craik Mansell's lips.

"Yes," repeated the detective, "perjury. Miss Dare lied when she said
she had been to Mrs. Clemmens' cottage on the morning of the murder. She
was not there, nor did she lift her hand against the widow's life. That
tale she told to escape telling another which she thought would insure
your doom."

"You have been talking to Miss Dare?" suggested the prisoner, with
subdued sarcasm.

"I have been talking to my two men," was the unmoved retort, "to Hickory
and to Byrd, and they not only confirm this statement of hers in regard
to the deception they played upon her, but say enough to show she could
not have been guilty of the crime, because at that time she honestly
believed you to be so."

"I do not understand you," cried the prisoner, in a voice that, despite
his marked self-control, showed the presence of genuine emotion.

Mr. Gryce at once went into particulars. He was anxious to have Craik
Mansell's mind disabused of the notion that Imogene had committed this
crime, since upon that notion he believed his unfortunate reticence to
rest. He therefore gave him a full relation of the scene in the hut,
together with all its consequences.

Mr. Mansell listened like a man in a dream. Some fact in the past
evidently made this story incredible to him.

Seeing it, Mr. Gryce did not wait to hear his comments, but upon
finishing his account, exclaimed, with a confident air:

"Such testimony is conclusive. It is impossible to consider Miss Dare
guilty, after an insight of this kind into the real state of her mind.
Even she has seen the uselessness of persisting in her self-accusation,
and, as I have already told you, went to Mr. Orcutt's house in order to
explain to him her past conduct, and ask his advice for the future. She
learned something else before her interview with Mr. Orcutt ended,"
continued the detective, impressively. "She learned that she had not
only been mistaken in supposing you had admitted your guilt, but that
you could not have been guilty, because you had always believed her to
be so. It has been a mutual case of suspicion, you see, and argues
innocence on the part of you both. Or so it seems to the prosecution.
How does it seem to you?"

"Would it help my cause to say?"

"It would help your cause to tell what sent you so abruptly from Mrs.
Clemmens' house the morning she was murdere