"Yes, sir, a foolish girl, who don't know the sin and the shame of what she's a-doing. And as far as I can find out, he has kept himself out of sight of everybody but her. But he was about the neighborhood late on the night that Jake Van Deust was killed—that I'm sure of; and met the girl that night—I know he did."
"And who is the girl?"
"My niece, Mary Wallace, sir. The more's the pity!"
"And the young man?"
"His name is Dorman Hackett."
Squire Bodley gave a gasp of surprise. He remembered Dorn Hackett as a strong, handsome orphan lad who had grown up almost to manhood in the neighborhood; a young fellow with a fine, frank, courageous face, and of whom he had never before heard an evil word; but he remembered, too, now that he came to think of it, that he had not seen the young fellow for a long time; and sighed to think that even the best boys sometimes grow up to be very wicked men when exposed to the temptations of vicious life in the great cities, and it was possible that Dorn Hackett, like many others, "had gone to the bad."
"You say that this young man has been away for three years?" asked the detective.
"He hasn't dared to let anybody here, except that girl, see his face for that long."
"And of course you know nothing of where he has been, and what he has been doing all that time?"
"No; how should I? Loafing around New York, I dare say. Such characters mostly goes there."