“The evidence against you,” he said, “so far at least as I can now discover, will all be circumstantial. They will endeavor to prove your presence at the scene of the tragedy by your tracks. Footmarks, said to correspond to yours, were found passing the door of the arbor, returning to it and going away from it.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Foster. “I remember,—I did pass there. I will tell you how. It was in the afternoon. I was in the house during a thunder-storm which happened that day, and left it shortly after the shower ended. I went out through the garden because that was the nearest way to the rivulet at the bottom of the hill, and I wished to make some examinations into the structure of the water-bed. A part of the garden walk is gravelled, and on that I suppose my tracks did not show. But near the arbor the gravel ceases, and there I remember stepping into the damp mould. I did pass the arbor, and I did return to it. I returned to it because it had been a heavenly place to me. It was there that I proposed to Miss Barron, and that she accepted me. The moment that I had passed it I reproached myself for doing so. I went back, looked at the little spot for a moment, and left a kiss on the table. It was on that table that her hand had rested when I first dared to take it in mine.”
His voice broke for an instant with an emotion which every one who has ever loved can at least partially understand.
“Good Heavens! to think that such an impulse should entangle me in such a charge!” he added, when he could speak again.
“Well,” he resumed, after a long sigh, “I left the arbor,—my heart as innocent and happy as any heart in the world,—I climbed over the fence and went down the hill. That is the last time that I was in those grounds that day. That is the whole truth, so help me God!”
The lawyer seemed touched. Even then, however, he was saying to himself, “They always keep back something, if not everything.” After meditating for a few seconds, he resumed his interrogatory.
“Did any one see you? did Miss Barron see you, as you passed through the garden?”
“I think not. Some one called her just as I left her, and she went, I believe, up stairs.”
“Did you see the person who called? Did you see any one?”