"WELL, and what have you to say?" It was Mr. Ferris who spoke. The week which Mr. Gryce had demanded for his inquiries had fully elapsed, and the three detectives stood before him ready with their report. It was Mr. Gryce who replied. "Sir," said he, "our opinions have not been changed by the discoveries which we have made. It was Mr. Orcutt who killed Mrs. Clemmens, and for the reason already stated that she stood in the way of his marrying Miss Dare. Mrs. Clemmens was his wife." "His _wife_?" "Yes, sir; and, what is more, she has been so for years; before either of them came to Sibley, in fact." The District Attorney looked stunned. "It was while they lived West," said Byrd. "He was a poor school-master, and she a waitress in some hotel. She was pretty then, and he thought he loved her. At all events, he induced her to marry him, and then kept it secret because he was afraid she would lose her place at the hotel, where she was getting very good wages. You see, he had the makings in him of a villain even then." "And was it a real marriage?" "There is a record of it," said Hickory. "And did he never acknowledge it?" "Not openly," answered Byrd. "The commonness of the woman seemed to revolt him after he was married to her, and when in a month or so he received the summons East, which opened up before him the career of a lawyer, he determined to drop her and start afresh. He accordingly left town without notifying her, and actually succeeded in reaching the railway depot twenty miles away before he was stopped. But here, a delay occurring in the departure of the train, she was enabled to overtake him, and a stormy scene ensued. What its exact nature was, we, of course, cannot say, but from the results it is evident that he told her his prospects had changed, and with them his tastes and requirements; that she was not the woman he thought her, and that he could not and would not take her East with him as his wife: while she, on her side, displayed full as much spirit as he, and replied that if he could desert her like this he wasn't the kind of a man she could live with, and that he could go if he wished; only that he must acknowledge her claims upon him by giving her a yearly stipend, according to his income and success. At all events, some such compromise was effected, for he came East and she went back to Swanson. She did not stay there long, however; for the next we know she was in Sibley, where she set up her own little house-keeping arrangements under his very eye. More than that, she prevailed upon him to visit her daily, and even to take a meal at her house, her sense of justice seeming to be satisfied if he showed her this little attention and gave to no other woman the place he denied her. It was the weakness shown in this last requirement that doubtless led to her death. She would stand any thing but a rival. He knew this, and preferred crime to the loss of the woman he loved."