“Where did you see my—­my—?”

“Not in Dakota mines, where I expected to find him.”

“Mr. Dunbar.”  She pointed to the chair at her side.

He shook his head, but approached and stood before her.

“I am waiting to hear you.”

“I sent you a telegram, promising information that would have prevented that journey.”

“It failed to reach me.”

Unconsciously she was wringing her hands as her thoughts whirled.

“I will tell you something now, if you will promise me that no harm shall—­”

He laughed scornfully.

“As if I had anything to learn concerning that cowardly villain!  Thanks for your confidence, which comes much too late.”

“You do not know that—­”

“Yes, I know all I want to know; more than you shall ever tell me, and I decline to hear a confession that, in my eyes, defiles you; that would only drive me to harsh denunciation of your foul idol.  Moreover, I will not extort by torture what you have withheld so jealously.  Do not wring your hands so desperately.  You are goaded to confession now, because you believe that I have secured your lover?  Take courage, he has not yet been arrested; he is still a wanderer hiding from retribution.”

She sprang up, trembling.

“But you said you had seen his face?”

“Yes, and I have come to take you where you can identify that face?”

“Then, he is dead.”  She covered her face with her hands.

“No, I wish to God he was dead!  Sit down.  I will not see you suffer such agony.  He is safe for the present.  If you will try to think of yourself for a moment, and pay me the compliment of listening, I will explain.  Do you recollect that during the storm on the night of the murder the lightning was remarkably vivid and severe?”

“Yes; can I ever forget any details of that night?  Go on.”

“Do you recall the position of the glass door on the west veranda; and also that the crimson drapery or curtain was drawn aside?”

“I recall it distinctly because, while Gen’l Darrington was reading my mother’s letter, I looked out through the glass at the chrysanthemums blooming in the garden.”

“That door was almost opposite the chimney, and the safe or vault in the wall was very near the fireplace.  It appears that when the chloroform failed to stupefy Gen’l Darrington, he got up and seized one of the andirons on the hearth, and attacked the thief who was stealing his money.  While they were struggling in front of the vault, a burst of electricity, some peculiarly vivid flash of lightning, sent by fate, by your guardian angel, it may have been by God himself—­photographed both men, and the interior of the room on the wide glass panel of that door.  Forms, faces, features, even the pattern of the cloth coat, are printed plainly there, for the whole world to study.  The murderer and the victim in mortal combat over the tin box.