"The handkerchief found near Mr. Linmere was marked with the single letter A. Whose name begins with that letter?"
"Stop, I implore you! I shall lose my reason! I am blinded—I cannot see! O, if I could only die and leave it all!"
"You will not die. I bore it, and still live; and it is so much harder for me, because I have to bear it all alone. You have your religion to help you, Margie. Surely that will bear you up! I have heard all you pious people prate enough of its service in time of trouble to remember that consolation."
"Don't, Alexandrine! It is sinful to scorn God's holy religion. Yes, you are right; it will help me. God himself will help me, if I ask him. He knows how much I stand in need of it."
"I am glad you are so likely to be supported," returned the girl, half-earnestly, half-contemptuously. "Are you satisfied in regard to Mr. Archer Trevlyn?"
"I will not credit it!" cried Margie, passionately. "He did not do that deed! He could not! So good, and noble, and pitiful of all suffering humanity! And besides, what motive could he have?"
"The motive was all-powerful. Has not Mr. Trevlyn, by his own confession, loved you from his youth up?"
"Yes."
"And Paul Linmere was about to become your husband. Could there be a more potent reason for Archer Trevlyn to desire Mr. Linmere's death? He was an obstacle which could be removed in no other way than by death, because you had promised your father to marry him, and you could not falsify your word. All men are weak and liable to sin; is Trevlyn any exception? Margie, I have told you frankly what I know. You can credit it or not. I leave it with you; decide as you think best. It is eight o'clock. I will go now, for it is time for your lover to come for you."
"O, I cannot meet him—not to-night! I must have time to think—time to collect my thoughts! My head whirls so, and everything is so dark! Stay, Alexandrine, and excuse me to him. Say I have a headache—anything to quiet him. I cannot see him now! I should go mad! Let me have a night to think of it!"