"Time passed and he prospered, our families were separated and never met.
"Callister hated him. He had himself loved Helen Dupont, and when she married Mansfield swore to be avenged.
"By trickery and device he so worked upon Mansfield's father as to cause him to make a singular will——
"Yes, yes," interrupted the detective, "I know all about that, you need not stop to explain."
"Do you? It may be so, but you do not know that it was Callister and myself who killed old Jeremiah Mansfield in his bed hoping to gain the buried treasure which we never found. You do not know that we robbed Mansfield's store of the funds intrusted to his care, and casting suspicion upon him drove his wife mad as was mine already, and sent him with a blackened name down to a defaulter's grave.
"We did that, Caleb Hook, and more. We robbed the Webster bank, and concocted the conspiracy to throw the burden of that crime on Frank Mansfield's son, the lad arrested by you."
"And you did all this," said the detective, sternly. "Reuben Tisdale, you are justly punished, you——"
"Hush, hush! If that were all I might still wish to live.
"Listen, for my breath grows short. You saw a woman dead in an upper room in the house in the rear of this evil den?"
"Yes, yes, Mrs. Marley—what of her?"