staunch friend and champion, you have kept away from Penmorval as if this house were infected, in order to avoid meeting my cousin."
"I cannot tell you a lie, Mrs. Wyllard, even to spare your feelings," replied Heathcote, deeply moved, "and yet I think you must know that I would do much to save you pain. Yes, I must admit that it has seemed to me that circumstances pointed to your cousin, as having been directly or indirectly concerned in that girl's death. His conduct became so strange at that date—so difficult to account for upon any other hypothesis."
"Has your experience of life never made you acquainted with strange coincidences?" asked Dora. "Is it impossible, or even improbable, that Bothwell should have some trouble upon his mind—a trouble which arose just about the time of that girl's death? Everything must have a date; and his anxieties happen to date from that time. I know his frank open nature, and how heavily any secret would weigh upon him."
"You believe, then, that he has a secret?"
"Yes—there is something—some entanglement which prevented his answering Mr. Distin's very impertinent questions."
"Has he confided his trouble to you? Has he convinced you of his innocence?"
"He had no occasion to do that. I never believed him guilty—I never could believe him guilty of such a diabolical crime." Tears came into her eyes as she spoke, but she dried them hastily. "Mr. Heathcote, you are a lawyer, a man of the world, a man of talent and leisure. You have been one of the first to do my kinsman a cruel wrong. Cannot you do something towards righting him? I am making this appeal on my own account—without Bothwell's knowledge. I come to you as the oldest friend I have—the one friend outside my own home in whom I can fully confide."
"You know that I would give my life in your service," he answered, with suppressed fervour. He dared not trust himself to say much. "Yes, you have but to command me. I will do all that human intelligence can do. But this is a difficult case. The only evidence against your cousin is of so vague a nature that it could not condemn him before a jury; and yet that evidence is strong enough to brand him as a possible murderer in the opinion of those who saw him under Distin's examination. He can never be thoroughly rehabilitated until the mystery of that girl's death has been fathomed, and I doubt if that will ever be. Where Joseph Distin has failed, with all the detective-police of London at his command, how can any amateur investigator hope to succeed?"
"Friendship may succeed where mere professional cleverness has been baffled," argued Dora. "I do not think that Mr. Distin's heart was in this case. At least that is the impression
