“Absolutely, yes.  I told you the truth before, except only my real name.  I was married to Philip Henley.  Wait, here is my marriage certificate; I have always kept it with me, for I have been afraid of him almost from the first.  I gave you the name Bernard unthinkingly, as that was the name he insisted upon living under.  He explained his father required this, or else would stop his remittances.  I had to humor him, although I thought it most strange.  Is that all you wish to know?”

“All now, yes.  I must have time to think, and plan what is best for us to do.  I can already see my duty sufficiently clear, but not how to go at it.  The fact is, Mrs. Henley—­”

“Would it not be better for you to call me Viola?” she interrupted.  “Someone might overhear, and we must continue to carry out the deception, I suppose.”

“It will be safer, if you do not object.”

“I?  Oh, no; I shall not care in the least.  You were saying?”

“This, Viola,” and her eyes suddenly flashed into mine, “the conditions I have already discovered here—­in this house—­are no less strange, and dangerous than the mission which brought us here.  Everything looks bad.  You ought to know it, and you are strong enough to be told.  I do not know who tried your door last night, and later escaped down the trellis.  If I did I could determine what action to take.  But one thing I do know—­there was murder committed in this house.”

“Murder!” her face went white, her fingers clasping my sleeve, “Who was killed?  Coombs?  That woman?”

“Neither.  A man I never saw before.  I heard the same shot which frightened you; took my lamp and investigated.  I found him lying dead on the floor of the rear room.  He had been shot in the back of the head through an open window.”

“Merciful God! and the body still there.”

“No, but its disappearance only adds to the mystery.  I dared not create an alarm at once, as we were in a strange house, and I had no means of knowing where to find either Coombs or the housekeeper.  Nor did I venture to leave you alone unguarded.  As soon as daylight came I went in there again to convince myself the murder was not a dream.  The man’s body lay there undisturbed.  I turned him over, and examined the wound.  Then I went out and found Coombs, who sleeps in one of the negro cabins.  He sneered at my discovery, but finally accompanied me back to the house.  I could not have been absent to exceed thirty minutes, and yet, when we opened the door of that rear room, the body had disappeared—­vanished completely.  Not a thing remained to tell of any tragedy.”

“It had been dragged into some other room; hidden away in some closet.  The woman did it.”

“That was my thought at first.  As soon as I got free from Coombs I searched this floor, every inch of it, and found nothing, not even so much as a stain of blood.  The dead man was heavily built, and Sallie could never have lifted him alone.  There were others—­men—­concerned in the affair.”