The secret that so long had hovered
Upon the misty verge of Truth.--LONGFELLOW.

"WELL, and what have you to say?" It was Mr. Ferris who spoke. The week
which Mr. Gryce had demanded for his inquiries had fully elapsed, and
the three detectives stood before him ready with their report.

It was Mr. Gryce who replied.

"Sir," said he, "our opinions have not been changed by the discoveries
which we have made. It was Mr. Orcutt who killed Mrs. Clemmens, and for
the reason already stated that she stood in the way of his marrying Miss
Dare. Mrs. Clemmens was his wife."

"His _wife_?"

"Yes, sir; and, what is more, she has been so for years; before either
of them came to Sibley, in fact."

The District Attorney looked stunned.

"It was while they lived West," said Byrd. "He was a poor school-master,
and she a waitress in some hotel. She was pretty then, and he thought he
loved her. At all events, he induced her to marry him, and then kept it
secret because he was afraid she would lose her place at the hotel,
where she was getting very good wages. You see, he had the makings in
him of a villain even then."

"And was it a real marriage?"

"There is a record of it," said Hickory.

"And did he never acknowledge it?"

"Not openly," answered Byrd. "The commonness of the woman seemed to
revolt him after he was married to her, and when in a month or so he
received the summons East, which opened up before him the career of a
lawyer, he determined to drop her and start afresh. He accordingly left
town without notifying her, and actually succeeded in reaching the
railway depot twenty miles away before he was stopped. But here, a delay
occurring in the departure of the train, she was enabled to overtake
him, and a stormy scene ensued. What its exact nature was, we, of
course, cannot say, but from the results it is evident that he told her
his prospects had changed, and with them his tastes and requirements;
that she was not the woman he thought her, and that he could not and
would not take her East with him as his wife: while she, on her side,
displayed full as much spirit as he, and replied that if he could desert
her like this he wasn't the kind of a man she could live with, and that
he could go if he wished; only that he must acknowledge her claims upon
him by giving her a yearly stipend, according to his income and success.
At all events, some such compromise was effected, for he came East and
she