Now that the confession was in my hands I knew not what course to pursue, and fell to wondering how much reviewing it might cause of the testimony which had cleared Danvers Carmichael, and what possible trouble from that might come home to Nancy's door. It was but nine o'clock; a thought seized me before I reached the house, and I sent MacColl to Arran Towers with a request that Mr. Danvers come to me immediately. It had been over a year since he had crossed my threshold, and although he was back in the country above three months, with Nancy's conduct still unexplained, friendly intercourse between the houses was impossible. "There's a welcome been waiting for you o'er long," I said to him as he entered the room, and here the fine directness of him answered me: "I've never had for you a thought not of the kindest; but your daughter's conduct to me; Lord Stair, has rendered----" and before he finished I put out my hand to stay him. "I wouldn't go on if I were you, Danvers! I wouldn't say that which I might come to regret. Ye haven't known all, and ye may have misjudged," and here I began at the other end. "The one who killed the Duke of Borthwicke has confessed the deed. I have the confession here!" I said, touching the paper I had from Hugh Pitcairn as it lay on the table. "The one who killed the duke!" Danvers cried, in amazement. "The man confessed himself a suicide." "Danvers," I went on, "I am afraid that letter was not written by the duke, not _all_ written by the duke. It was on separate sheets, if you remember, the first one naturally without signature. It is this part which I believe to have been partly written by another." If ever there was a mystified face it was Danvers's as he stood trying to make something of my words. "Let me tell you the whole story," I went on, "a bit at a time, and when I bungle it in the telling stop me till ye get it clear, for the future between us is just hanging on the tale I tell. "The night of the murder I saw ye, Danvers, going back to Stair, bareheaded, in the snow, upon what errand I knew not; and when Nancy and I went down the steps of the little porch, she picked up something and hid it in the lace of her cloak; but in her room that night, when she fainted, I saw it was your cap, all of which she held silence concerning. And the next morning I was sent off to Pitcairn to worm it from him if he had heard you threatening the duke the day before, and discovered that not only did he hear that, but knew as well, from the fool chemist, that you were seen running away from Stair on the very heels of the murder, and if a blacker case was ever set for a woman to clear away I have yet to hear of it." "I came up from Father Michel's through your grounds, hoping to catch a sight of her by the light in the writing-room. When I was far toward home I discovered that I had lost the cap she gave me, and turned back for it, but the snow was so deep I thought it useless," Danvers explained.