“And perjured her soul by the declaration,” affirmed Talbot Strangemore, bitterly. “She hated my innocent Nina, and so to take revenge upon her she blackened her own soul and condemned it to Hades by her lying deposition. She had first worked upon Nina’s feelings until the girl had fled from her home, and I believe Mrs. St. Alban was cognizant of that fact before she was murdered, and so in her dying hours took her fatal revenge, choosing to shield the man who had killed her at the expense of my poor young wife!” “The theory looks very plausible, certainly,” said Mr. Armstrong, with subdued bitterness, born of his own consciousness of wrong and suffering. “There is nothing too monstrous for a bad woman to do to further the ends of her despotic will.” “Nothing!” echoed Talbot Strangemore, and suddenly one of his comrades said to him, significantly: “And this slighted lover, this angry man whom you suspect of Mrs. St. Alban’s murder, where is he now?” Talbot Strangemore drew his breath hard for a moment between his compressed lips. The question was taken up and repeated from lip to lip: “You say that you have been upon the track of the murderer for many weeks. Where is he now?” He answered, pointing a scornful finger at the cowering wretch before him: “Behold him in Oswald Ferris!” CHAPTER XLVII. RALPH ST. ALBAN. A snarl of tiger like rage and hate came from the lips of Ferris at those few emphatic words from the lips of his foe. He growled, hoarsely: “Curse you forever for that base lie! How dare you thus condemn an innocent man?” Talbot Strangemore did not answer him. He was looking at his comrades. “You know now, my friends, why the asp was placed in my bed to-night. Oswald Ferris knew that I suspected him and that I would follow him from one end of the earth to the other to convict him of his sin and clear the memory of my martyred bride, so he took that means of ridding himself of his foe.” “It is false, false!” the accused ground out between his clenched teeth, vindictively, but no one paid any regard to his denials. Every man was against him. The terrible purpose that had been frustrated by the arrival of John Armstrong flamed up into their minds again. “Lynch law is too good for this villain!” they shouted, angrily. Oswald Ferris sprang up, he caught John Armstrong hurriedly by the arm. “Do not let this horrible thing go on, do not let them murder me,” he cried, imploringly. Armstrong shook himself scornfully free. “What can I say or do to prevent them from carrying out their threat? You have shown yourself such a wicked wretch that the injuries of your victims cry out against you for vengeance!” he said.