It needed but this to make Sophie pour out all that she knew of the old hag's cruelties to Liane up to last night, when the sounds of a supposed scuffle had penetrated to her ears, causing the family to intrude on the old woman en masse, to find that granny had only been driving a nail, and that Liane was asleep in bed. "You saw her asleep?" he asked. "Yes; we all tiptoed to the door, and she lay peacefully in bed, with the covers drawn up to her chin." "You are sure that she was breathing?" he asked hoarsely. "Why, no, sir--but--my God, do you think there could have been anything wrong?" cried Sophie, alarmed by his looks. He answered in a voice of anguish: "I suspect that you were looking at the corpse of sweet Liane; I suspect that the noise you heard was old granny beating her to death, and that she has hidden the dead away, and put out a hideous lie to account for her disappearance!" Sophie was so terrified that she burst into violent weeping. But Edmund Clarke's face wore the calmness of a terrible despair. He felt now that Liane had been foully murdered, and that nothing remained to him but to take the most complete vengeance on her murderers. He exclaimed hoarsely: "Do not weep so bitterly, my good girl; tears will not bring back the dead. All that remains to us now is to take vengeance on her enemies. To do this we must find proofs of their crime. Come with me, and let us search Granny Jenks' room." It was not hard to break open the locked door, and they went into the gloomy apartments, Sophie opening the window and letting in a flood of light. Then she saw what had escaped their eyes last night--stains of blood on the bare, uncarpeted floor. In the bedroom, the pillow where Liane's head had rested last night was also marked by red stains that told in their own mute language the story of a terrible crime. Their horrified eyes met, and he groaned: "It is as I told you! She was murdered, sweet Liane! Oh, I will take a terrible vengeance for the crime!" Sophie replied with heartbroken sobbing, and they remained thus several moments, shuddering with horror in the bare, fireless room. But not a tear dimmed the man's eyes. He was stricken with despair that lay too deep for tears. His heavy eyes wandered about the room, lighting on a small black trunk in a corner. "If I could only find the proofs!" he muttered, and unhesitatingly broke the lock, scattering the contents out upon the floor. It was filled with yellowing relics of a bygone day, and he turned them over rapidly, saying to Sophie: "I am searching for something to prove a suspicion of mine--a suspicion of a deadly wrong!" She dried her eyes and looked on with womanly curiosity, while he picked up and shook a little red box in the bottom of the trunk. A dozen or two trinkets and letters fell out on the floor, and he searched them eagerly over, lighting at last on a slender golden necklace belonging to an infant. He held it with a shaking hand, saying to Sophie: