urand's good name should be
restored by the coroner's verdict, or such evidence brought to light
as should effectually place him beyond all suspicion, I was to hold no
communication with him of any sort whatever. I remember the very words
with which my uncle ended the one exhaustive conversation we had on the
subject. They were these:

"You have fully expressed to Mr. Durand your entire confidence In his
Innocence. That must suffice him for the present. If he Is the honest
gentleman you think him, It will."

As uncle seldom asserted himself, and as he is very much in earnest when
he does, I made no attempt to combat this resolution, especially as it
met the approval of my better judgment. But though my power to convey
sympathy fell thus under a yoke, my thoughts and feelings remained
free, and these were all consecrated to the man struggling under an
imputation, the disgrace and humiliation of which he was but poorly
prepared, by his former easy life of social and business prosperity, to
meet.

For Mr. Durand, in spite of the few facts which came up from time to
time in confirmation of his story, continued to be almost universally
regarded as a suspect.

This seemed to me very unjust. What if no other clue offered--no other
clue, I mean, recognized as such by police or public! Was he not to
have the benefit of whatever threw a doubt on his own culpability? For
instance, that splash of blood on his shirt-front, which I had seen, and
the shape of which I knew! Why did not the fact that it was a splash
and not a spatter (and spatter it would have been had it spurted there,
instead of falling from above, as he stated), count for more in the
minds of those whose business it was to probe into the very heart of
this crime? To me, it told such a tale of innocence that I wondered how
a man like the inspector could pass over it. But later I understood. A
single word enlightened me. The stain, it was true, was In the form of
a splash and not a spurt, but a splash would have been the result of a
drop falling from the reeking end of the stiletto, whether it dislodged
itself early or late. And what was there to prove that this drop had not
fallen at the instant the stiletto was being thrust Into the lantern,
instead of after the escape of the criminal, and the entrance of another
man?

But the mystery of the broken coffee-cups! For that no explanation
seemed to be forthcoming.

And the still unsolved one of the written warnin