"Miss Firman," said he, "allow me to put to you one final question which, though it might not be called a strictly legal one, is surely justified by the gravity of the situation. If Mrs. Clemmens had finished this letter, and you in due course had received it, what conclusion would you have drawn from the words you have just read?" "I could have drawn but one, sir. I should have considered that the solitary life led by my cousin was telling upon her mind." "But these terrors of which she speaks? To what and whom would you have attributed them?" "I don't like to say it, and I don't know as I am justified in saying it, but it would have been impossible for me, under the circumstances, to have thought of any other source for them than the one we have already mentioned." "And that is?" inexorably pursued the coroner. "Mr. Gouverneur Hildreth." VIII. THE THICK-SET MAN. Springs to catch woodcocks.--HAMLET. IN the pause that followed, Miss Firman stepped aside, and Mr. Byrd, finding his attention released, stole a glance toward the hall-way and its nearly concealed occupant. He found the elbow in agitated movement, and, as he looked at it, saw it disappear and a hand project into view, groping for the handkerchief which was, doubtless, hidden in the hat which he now perceived standing on the floor in the corner of the door-way. He looked at that hand well. It was large, white, and elegantly formed, and wore a seal ring of conspicuous size upon the little finger. He had scarcely noticed this ring, and wondered if others had seen it too, when the hand plunged into the hat, and drawing out the kerchief, vanished with it behind the jamb that had already hidden so much from his view. "A fine gentleman's hand, and a fine gentleman's ring," was Mr. Byrd's mental comment; and he was about to glance aside, when, to his great astonishment, he saw the hand appear once more with the handkerchief in it, but without the ring which a moment since had made it such a conspicuous mark for his eyes. "Our fine gentleman is becoming frightened," he thought, watching the hand until it dropped the handkerchief back into the hat. "One does not take off a ring in a company like this without a good reason." And he threw a quick glance at the man he considered his rival in the detective business. But that worthy was busily engaged in stroking his chin in a feeling way, strongly suggestive of a Fledgerby-like interest in his absent whisker; and well versed as was Mr. Byrd in the ways of his fellow-detectives, he found it impossible to tell whether the significant action he had just remarked had escaped the attention of this man or not. Confused if not confounded, he turned back to the coroner, in a maze of new sensations, among which a growing hope that his own former suspicions had been of a wholly presumptuous character, rose predominant. He found that functionary preparing to make a remark.