ures.

"Good!" he almost shouted.

"You have discovered something?" asked Tom Ostrello quickly.

"Yes, I have discovered a great deal. I think the murder mystery is as
good as solved."

CHAPTER XXVIII

WHAT HAPPENED TO MARGARET

It is said by specialists that the human brain can stand just so much,
and no more. The tension becomes so great--something snaps--and then?
The question is one, hard, if not impossible, to answer.

So it was with poor Margaret, hounded by the well-meaning but ignorant
officers of the law of the community in which the double crime had been
committed. So searching had been the questions put, so strong the
accusations, that the reasoning powers of the girl were completely
shattered. She imagined herself guilty--imagined herself being taken
to prison, to be hung or electrocuted, and in a hundred ways suffered
the mental tortures of the eternally condemned.

Then came a change, when she grew hysterical and laughed softly to
herself. No! no! she must not let them hang or electrocute her! It
would be too much of a disgrace! She must escape such a fearful fate!

But how? There could be but one answer to that question. She must
contrive in some way to outwit her enemies--she must escape--must fly
to some place where they would never be able to find her.

It is said that those who are insane are usually shrewd, and so it was
in Margaret's case. She prepared to run away, but she did not allow
the nurse or the doctor to become aware of what she was doing. She
waited until the doctor had made another call, and then asked the nurse
to fix her something special to eat.

"Why, yes, I'll get whatever you wish, my dear!" said the nurse, and
went below to prepare the food.

No sooner had the woman disappeared than Margaret leaped from her bed
and began to dress. All of her things, even to her hat, were in a
closet of the bedroom, so this was easy.

"How shall I go?" she asked herself. She knew, from the talk she had
heard, that a policeman was somewhere around, watching the house. She
looked out of a window and saw him, leaning against a fence, taking
occasional sly puffs from a pipe he held in the hollow of his hand.

She did not dare descend the stairs. She looked out of the window. It
was not very far to the roof of a porch, and against the porch was a
trellis, with a wealth of honeysuckle growing upon it.

How she did it, Margaret could not afterwards remember. But she