st for Richard's not saying anything on the subject
may suffice for us, but it will scarcely satisfy disinterested
persons, and doesn't at all cover another circumstance which must be
taken in the same connection."

"What circumstance?"

"His silence in regard to Lemuel Shackford's note,--a note written
the day before the murder, and making an appointment for the very
night of it."

The girl looked steadily at her father.

"Margaret!" exclaimed Mr. Slocum, his face illuminated with a
flickering hope as he met her untroubled gaze, "did Richard tell
_you?"_

"No," replied Margaret.

"Then he told no one," said Mr. Slocum, with the light fading out
of his features again. "It was madness in him to conceal the fact. He
should not have lost a moment, after the death of his cousin, in
making that letter public. It ought instantly to have been placed in
Coroner Whidden's hands. Richard's action is inconceivable,
unless--unless"--

"Do not say it!" cried Margaret. "I should never forgive you!"

In recapitulating the points of Mr. Taggett's accusation, Mr.
Slocum had treated most of them as trivial; but he had not been
sincere. He knew that that broken chisel had no duplicate in
Stillwater, and that the finding of it in Richard's closet was a
black fact. Mr. Slocum had also glossed over the quarrel; but that
letter!--the likelihood that Richard kept the appointment, and his
absolute silence concerning it,--here was a grim thing which no
sophistry could dispose of. It would be wronging Margaret to deceive
her as to the vital seriousness of Richard's position.

"Why, why did he hide it!" Mr. Slocum persisted.

"I do not see that he really hid it, papa. He shut the note in a
book lying openly on the table,--a dictionary, to which any one in
the household was likely to go. You think Mr. Taggett a person of
great acuteness."

"He is a very intelligent person, Margaret."

"He appears to me very short-sighted. If Richard were the dreadful
man Mr. Taggett supposes, that paper would have been burnt, and not
left for the first comer to pick up. I scorn myself for stooping to
the suggestion!"

"There is something in the idea," said Mr. Slocum slowly. "But why
did Richard never mention the note,--to you, or to me, or to
anybody?"

"He had a sufficient reason, you may be sure. Oh, papa, how ready
you are to believe evil of him!"

"I am not, God knows!"

"How you cling to this story of the letter! Suppose it turns out