When morning dawned a new face was put upon the matter. Steps were discovered leading from the scene of the murder along the beach and up the cliff. There were also discovered signs of a struggle in the cave, and it became clear that there had been a conflict and that one of the two concerned had escaped.
Of course it could not have been the hermit, for he was now in custody. Moreover, a fisherman who had been out in his boat in the evening remembered meeting the hermit rowing at about the time the murder must have been committed.
These discoveries cleared the hermit, but the question arose:
“Who was this other man?” There was no difficulty in solving this question. There were plenty who remembered the stranger who had spent a part of the previous evening in the barroom of the tavern, and his evident curiosity as to the wealth of the hermit was also remembered.
The real state of the case was now pretty well understood. This stranger had suddenly resolved to rob the hermit and had secretly found his way to the cavern.
But how did he happen to find the fisherman there and what was the object of the latter?
Then it was remembered that Trafton also had seemed much interested in the supposed hoards of the hermit, and, when his own want of money was considered, it was suspected that he, too, went on an errand similar to the burglar.
But he was dead, and his neighbors, who knew that he must have yielded to the force of a sudden and new temptation, did not care to speculate upon his object.
They were disposed to spare their old neighbor and charitably drop a veil over his attempted crime, which had brought upon him such fearful retribution.
Of course the hermit was released from custody, and there was not a person in the village who did not acquit him of all wrong except Mrs. Scott, who could not forgive him for proving her suspicions groundless.