“But I was not satisfied to remain there.  A curiosity, a determination even, to see the man who had committed this dastardly deed, attacked me with such force that I was induced to leave my hiding-place and even to enter the house where in all probability he was counting the gains he had just obtained at the price of so much precious blood.  The door, which he had not perfectly closed behind him, seemed to invite me in, and before I had realised my own temerity, I was standing in the hall of this ill-fated house.”

The interest, which up to this moment had been breathless, now expressed itself in hurried ejaculations and broken words; and Mr. Sutherland, who had listened like one in a dream, exclaimed eagerly, and in a tone which proved that he, for the moment at least, believed this more than improbable tale: 

“Then you can tell us if Philemon was in the little room at the moment when you entered the house?”

As everyone there present realised the importance of this question, a general movement took place and each and all drew nearer as she met their eyes and answered placidly: 

“Yes; Mr. Webb was sitting in a chair asleep.  He was the only person I saw.”

“Oh, I know he never committed this crime,” gasped his old friend, in a relief so great that one and all seemed to share it.

“Now I have courage for the rest.  Go on, Miss Page.”

But Miss Page paused again to look at her finger, and give that sideways toss to her head that seemed so uncalled for by the situation to any who did not know of the compact between herself and the listening man below.

“I hate to go back to that moment,” said she; “for when I saw the candles burning on the table, and the husband of the woman who at that very instant was possibly breathing her last breath in the room overhead, sitting there in unconscious apathy, I felt something rise in my throat that made me deathly sick for a moment.  Then I went right in where he was, and was about to shake his arm and wake him, when I detected a spot of blood on my finger from the dagger I had handled.  That gave me another turn, and led me to wipe off my finger on his sleeve.”

“It’s a pity you did not wipe off your slippers too,” murmured Sweetwater.

Again she looked at him, again her eyes opened in terror upon the face of this man, once so plain and insignificant in her eyes, but now so filled with menace she inwardly quaked before it, for all her apparent scorn.

“Slippers,” she murmured.

“Did not your feet as well as your hands pass through the blood on the grass?”

She disdained to answer him.

“I have accounted for the blood on my hand,” she said, not looking at him, but at Mr. Courtney.  “If there is any on my slippers it can be accounted for in the same way.”  And she rapidly resumed her narrative.  “I had no sooner made my little finger clean I never thought of anyone suspecting the old gentleman when I heard steps on the stairs and knew that the murderer was coming down, and in another instant would pass the open door before which I stood.