nd he has been very ingenious and very merciless. He was
plainly at his wits' ends to sustain his reputation, and would not
have hesitated to sacrifice any one rather than wholly fail."

"But you have been crying, Margaret."

"How could I see Richard dragged down in the dust in this fashion,
and not be mortified and indignant?"

"You don't believe anything at all of this?"

"Do _you?"_ asked Margaret, looking through and through him.

"I confess I am troubled."

"If you doubt Richard for a second," said Margaret, with a slight
quiver of her lip, "that will be the bitterest part of it to me."

"I don't give any more credit to Mr. Taggett's general charges
than you do, Margaret; but I understand their gravity better. A
perfectly guiltless man, one able with a single word to establish his
innocence, is necessarily crushed at first by an accusation of this
kind. Now, can Richard set these matters right with a single word? I
am afraid he has a world of difficulty before him."

"When he returns he will explain everything. How can you question
it?"

"I do not wish to; but there are two things in Mr. Taggett's story
which stagger me. The motive for the destruction of Shackford's
papers,--that's not plain; the box of matches is a puerility unworthy
of a clever man like Mr. Taggett, and as to the chisel he found, why,
there are a hundred broken chisels in the village, and probably a
score of them broken in precisely the same manner; but, Margaret, did
Richard every breathe a word to you of that quarrel with his cousin?"

"No."

"He never mentioned it to me either. As matters stood between you
and him, nothing was more natural than that he should have spoken of
it to you,--so natural that his silence is positively strange."

"He may have considered it too unimportant. Mr. Shackford always
abused Richard; it was nothing new. Then, again, Richard is very
proud, and perhaps he did not care to come to us just at that time
with family grievances. Besides, how do we know they quarreled? The
village is full of gossip."

"I am certain there was a quarrel; it was only necessary for those
two to meet to insure that. I distinctly remember the forenoon when
Richard went to Welch's Court; it was the day he discharged Torrini."

A little cloud passed over Margaret's countenance.

"They undoubtedly had angry words together," continued Mr. Slocum,
"and we are forced to accept the Hennessey girl's statement. The
reason you sugge