“ ‘Give me the keys to your cottage,’ she said finally, ‘and don’t ride out here for a few days. I want to hide there until my husband comes for me.’
“ ‘You have a husband?’ I blurted out in surprise.
“ ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘I was married a year ago, but no one must know it now. I live with my father and stepmother.’
“While she was speaking the tears were running down her cheeks, and I was too hurt to speak, but I handed her the key, and rode away as quickly as I could. I never saw her again until three months ago.
“Two weeks later I was arrested for having murdered her. I was in my office one morning, when the sheriff came and took me to view the spot where the deed was supposed to have been committed. She was supposed to have been killed by me while in her bed. The cottage door was locked, and the key to it was in my vest pocket. I had had two keys to the front door of the place, the one I gave her and the one which helped to convict me.
“Her trinkets were found in a bedroom, some clothing, a pair of slippers, and my business card. There was blood on the straw matting in the bedroom which the girl had occupied; there was blood on the chairs, on the dresser, and on the stairs; in the front hall as far as the front door, and on the front porch, as if some one bleeding had walked or had been carried down the stairs and out upon the front veranda. Every door and window was carefully bolted, so it was evident that the murderer had entered through the door with the help of a key, and had carefully locked the door behind him in going out. A sheet had been torn to shreds, and some of it was missing.
“I told my story, but it had no weight in court. The girl had never been away from home, according to her father and the servants, except mornings for a short ride, when it was proven that she had met me. More than twenty people testified that I had been to the cottage every night. They had seen me riding out, according to my custom, and they had seen me ride back in the morning.
“As a matter of fact, I had taken a ride on horseback every night and every morning, but never in the direction of the cottage while she was there.
“At the trial there were people who testified in my behalf, and many people believed in my innocence. Among them was a black servant, who said that the lady had had a secret lover before she ever saw me, and the girl’s stepmother testified that the girl had acted queerly for many months; that she used to ride to the postoffice every morning and night, because she feared that her letters would fall into the hands of her father.
“In spite of all this, my guilt was made to appear perfectly clear, and the jury brought in a verdict of murder in the first degree, and, as I told you before, I was sentenced to be hanged.