“The evidence in your case--the circumstantial evidence--appeared to be equally convincing, Owen,” interrupted the judge. “Yet she refused to accept it; and it turned out afterward that her faith was not misplaced.” Sheridan looked at him eagerly. “Then you really think that there’s a chance of her being innocent?” “I do. Your own narrow escape ought to have taught you that there is always a chance of circumstantial evidence leading to a wrong conclusion. Now, there is one thing about that telegram which you found in the waste-paper basket which, in my opinion, indicates that Miss Worthington did not steal the pink envelope. Apparently it is a point which has escaped your observation.” “What do you mean, judge?” inquired Owen breathlessly. “I refer to the opening words of that message: ‘Disregard my letter,’ she telegraphs to her brother. Now, doesn’t that look as if she may have been telling the truth when she stated to Carrier Andrews that she had dropped into that mail box a letter which she had changed her mind about sending? Doesn’t it look as if the opening words of her telegram have reference to that letter?” A look of joy came to Owen’s face. “By Jove, yes!” he exclaimed. “I think I see it now, judge. Dallas didn’t mean to steal the Reverend Doctor Moore’s letter. She was after the one which she had dropped in the box--the one to her brother in Chicago. She got the other pink envelope by mistake. Yes, that must be it, of course. She didn’t discover her error until she reached home; then, realizing that it was too late to stop that letter to her brother, she sat down and wrote him that telegram. The whole thing’s as clear as daylight now. I’m mighty glad that I met you to-day, judge.” Then suddenly all the joy departed from Sheridan’s face. “But no, it couldn’t have been that way, after all,” he went on, with a sigh of disappointment. “That theory won’t go; we’re overlooking two things.” “What are they?” “In the first place, she didn’t send that telegram to her brother, after all. If she had I wouldn’t have found it in the basket.” “Pooh! That argument’s easily met. She may have sent another message. Women generally write a telegram over three or four times before they’re satisfied with the wording of it, you know. Or she may have decided that, as she was going out to Chicago, there was no need of telegraphing. Probably she figured on getting there almost as soon as her letter.” “Yes,” Owen admitted; “of course, that’s logical enough. But my other argument isn’t so easily disposed of. I’m afraid it knocks out our theory.” “What is it?” “If Dallas got the clergyman’s letter by an innocent mistake, what became of her letter--the one she really wanted? There was no other pink envelope in that box. There would have been if she had been telling the truth when she said she mailed it.”