“A task for his equal, not for an ignorant, untried woman like myself,” she thought; and, following another of her impulses, she leaped from her seat at the table and rushed across to her dresser on which she placed two candles, one at her right and another at her left.  Then she sat down between them and in the stillness of midnight surveyed herself in the glass, as she might survey the face of a stranger.

What did she see?  A countenance no longer young, and yet with some of the charm of youth still lingering in the brooding eyes and in the dangerous curves of a mobile and expressive mouth.  But it was not for charm she was looking, but for some signs of power quite apart from that of sex.  Did her face express intellect, persistence and, above all, courage?  The brow was good;—­she would so characterise it in another.  Surely a woman with such a forehead might do something even against odds.  Nor was her chin weak; sometimes she had thought it too pronounced for beauty; but what had she to do with beauty now?  And the neck so proudly erect! the heaving breast! the heart all aflame!  Defeat is not for such; or only such defeat as bears within it the germ of future victory.

Is her reading correct?  Time will prove.  Meanwhile she will have confidence in herself, and that this confidence might be well founded she decided to spend the rest of the night in formulating her plans and laying out her imaginary campaign.

Leaving the dresser she recommenced that rapid walking to and fro which was working such havoc in the nerves of the man in the room below her.  When she paused, it was to ransack a trunk and bring out a flat wallet filled with newspaper clippings, many of them discoloured by time, and all of them showing marks of frequent handling.

A handling now to be repeated.  For after a few moments spent in arranging them, she deliberately set about their complete reperusal, a task in which it has now become necessary for us to join her.

The first was black with old head-lines: 

Crime in dark hollow

——­

Algernon Etheridge, One of Our Most Esteemed
Citizens, Waylaid and Murdered at Long Bridge.

——­

A direct clue to the murderer

——­

The Stick With Which the Crime was Committed Easily Traced to Its Owner.  The Landlord of Claymore Tavern in the Toils.  He Denies His Guilt But Submits Sullenly to Arrest.

Particulars followed.

“Last evening Shelby’s clean record was blackened by outrageous crime.  Some time after nightfall a carter was driving home by Factory Road, when just as he was nearing Long Bridge one of his horses shied so violently that he barely escaped being thrown from his seat.  As he had never known the animal to shy like this before, he was curious enough to get down and look about him for the cause.  Dark Hollow is never light, but it is impenetrable after dark, and not being able to see anything, he knelt down in the road and began to feel about with his hand.  This brought results.  In a few moments he came upon the body of a man lying without movement, and seemingly without life.