"That is not strange," explained Mr. Byrd, drawing nearer, as if to escape that pursuing sweetness of incongruous song. "He is not known in this town. He only came here the morning the unfortunate woman was murdered. Whether he really killed her or not," he proceeded, with forced quietness, "no one can tell, of course. But the facts are very much against him, and the poor fellow is under arrest." "What?" The word was involuntary. So was the tone of horrified surprise in which it was uttered. But the music, now swelling to a crescendo, drowned both word and tone, or so she seemed to fondly imagine; for, making another effort at self-control, she confined herself to a quiet repetition of his words, "'Under arrest'?" and then waited with only a suitable display of emotion for whatever further enlightenment he chose to give her. He mercifully spoke to the point. "Yes, under arrest. You see he was in the house at or near the time the deadly blow was struck. He was in the front hall, he says, and nowhere near the woman or her unknown assailant, but there is no evidence against any one else, and the facts so far proved, show he had an interest in her death, and so he has to pay the penalty of circumstances. And he may be guilty, who knows," the young detective pursued, seeing she was struck with horror and dismay, "dreadful as it is to imagine that a gentleman of culture and breeding could be brought to commit such a deed." But she seemed to have ears for but one phrase of all this. "He was in the front hall," she repeated. "How did he get there? What called him there?" "He had been visiting the widow, and was on his way out. He paused to collect his thoughts, he said. It seems unaccountable, Miss Dare; but the whole thing is strange and very mysterious." She was deaf to his explanations. "Do you suppose he heard the widow scream?" she asked, tremblingly, "or----" A sinking of the ringing tones whose powerful vibration had made this conversation possible, caused her to pause. When the notes grew loud enough again for her to proceed, she seemed to have forgotten the question she was about to propound, and simply inquired: "Had he any thing to say about what he overheard--or saw?" "No. If he spoke the truth and stood in the hall as he said, the sounds, if sounds there were, stopped short of the sitting-room door, for he has nothing to say about them." A change passed over Miss Dare. She dropped her eyes, and an instant's pause followed this last acknowledgment. "Will you tell me," she inquired, at last, speaking very slowly, in an attempt to infuse into her voice no more than a natural tone of interest, "how it was he came to say he stood in that place during the assault?" "He did not say he stood in that place during the assault," was again the forced rejoinder of Mr. Byrd. "It was by means of a nice calculation of time and events, that it was found he must have been in the house at or near the fatal moment."