e to be
believed, was on the kitchen portico; Craik Mansell on the dining-room
door-step; Imogene Dare before her telescope in Professor Darling's
observatory. Mr. Hildreth, with two doors closed between him and the
back of the house, knew nothing of what was said or done there, but the
tramp heard loud talking, and Craik Mansell the actual voice of the
widow raised in words which were calculated to mislead him into thinking
she was engaged in angry altercation with the woman he loved. What do
all three do, then? Mr. Hildreth remains where he is; the tramp skulks
away through the front gate; Craik Mansell rushes back to the woods. And
Imogene Dare? She has turned her telescope toward Mrs. Clemmens'
cottage, and, being on the side of the dining-room door, sees the flying
form of Craik Mansell, and marks it till it disappears from her sight.
Is there any thing contradictory in these various statements? No. Every
thing, on the contrary, that is reconcilable.

Let us proceed then. What happens a few minutes later? Mr. Hildreth,
tired of seclusion and anxious to catch the train, opens the front door
and steps out. The tramp, skulking round some other back door, does not
see him; Imogene, with her eye on Craik Mansell, now vanishing into the
woods, does not see him; nobody sees him. He goes, and the widow for a
short interval is as much alone as she believed herself to be a minute
or two before when three men stood, unseen by each other, at each of the
three doors of her house. What does she do now?

Why, she finishes preparing her dinner, and then, observing that the
clock is slow, proceeds to set it right. Fatal task! Before she has had
an opportunity to finish it, the front door has opened again, Mr. Orcutt
has come in, and, tempted perhaps by her defenceless position, catches
up a stick of wood from the fireplace and, with one blow, strikes her
down at his feet, and rushes forth again with tidings of her death.

Now, is there any thing in all _this_ that is contradictory? No; there
is only something left out. In the whole of this description of what
went on in the widow's house, there has been no mention made of the
ring--the ring which it is conceded was either in Craik Mansell's or
Imogene Dare's possession the evening before the murder, and which was
found on the dining-room floor within ten minutes after the assault took
place. If Mrs. Clemmens' exclamations are to be taken as an attempt to
describe her murderer, th