nsel?"

"Certainly. Berners and Denham are as good men as any I can find. I have
sent a note to ask Berners to come here to see me to-day. While waiting
for him you and I can write out those advertisements," said Alden
Lytton.

These plans were all promptly carried out.

That same day an experienced detective was found and dispatched to
Philadelphia to hunt up evidence for the defense.

And that evening advertisements were sent by mail, to be scattered all
over the country.

But some days after this, Mary Grey, who was stopping at the Reindeer,
saw one of these advertisements in a Richmond paper and smiled in
triumph.

"They have scented out a part of the truth," she said. "They have more
sharpness than I gave them credit for possessing. They have scented out
a part of the truth, but they can not follow the scent. Ha, ha, ha! They
may advertise from now till doomsday, but they will never get a response
from him! Let them rake the Susquehanna if they can! Perhaps, deep in
its mud, they may find what the fishes have left of him!" she said, with
a sneer.

But even as she spoke these wicked words she shuddered with horror.

Meanwhile, every day Mr. Lytton and his counsel, Messrs. Berners and
Denham, consulted together concerning the proper line of defense to be
taken by them.

It is almost needless to say that Messrs. Berners and Denham felt
perfectly sure of the absolute guiltlessness of their client, and quite
sanguine in their expectations both of a full acquittal of the
falsely-accused and of a thorough exposure and successful prosecution of
the conspirators.

But as time passed and no answer came to the advertisements for the
missing man both counsel and client began to grow anxious.

The detective who had been sent to Philadelphia to look up evidence for
the defense returned to Wendover with such meager intelligence that the
hopes of all concerned sank very low.

So overwhelming was the evidence against the accused that to gain an
acquittal it was absolutely necessary either to prove an alibi or to
find the man who had personated Mr. Lytton at the marriage ceremony.

But neither of these most important objects had been yet effected.

No one had been found in Philadelphia, or elsewhere, who had set eyes on
Mr. Alden Lytton between the hours of eleven and one on the fifteenth of
the last September, at which time his marriage with Mary Grey was
alleged to have taken place.

And no one had answered the