“But I tell you solemnly that I have injured no one. The evidence against me is all of a purely circumstantial nature. You say yourself that Mrs. Strangemore has been proven guilty of the murder of Sibyl St. Alban. That fact clears me fairly from Strangemore’s idiotic charge. For the other, no one can swear that I placed the serpent in his bed. They merely supposed so from the fact that Wilson saw me looking at his pet asp last evening. I ask you, are these baseless accusations sufficient evidence for Judge Lynch to proceed upon?” clamored Ferris, sharply. “He took away the box with the asp and I could swear that he placed it under the pillow of Strangemore. He is a guilty wretch, and deserves to have summary justice executed upon him!” exclaimed Harvey Wilson, threateningly. “We will take him out to the highest palm-tree we can find and swing him from the end of a rope,” shouted the men. “We will thus avenge the murder of Mrs. St. Alban and the attempted one of Talbot Strangemore,” added Harvey Wilson. “No, no, no,” shrieked Ferris, and again he clutched Mr. Armstrong’s arm, imploringly. “For God’s sake, exert your influence and save me from the fury of this mob!” he cried. “You will not permit them to commit a cold blooded murder!” But John Armstrong had become thoroughly imbued with the belief in his guilt, and his indignation ran as high as that of the others. He resolutely refused to speak one word to the excited and angry men. “You overrate my influence,” he said, coldly. “What can the word of one man avail against a determined mob?” “Then help me to fight for my life and I will at least sell it at as dear a cost as possible,” exclaimed the shuddering victim, to whom retribution was now hastening on. “I will have nothing to do with the matter. I believe it was all settled before I came upon the scene and I have no wish to meddle with the decision of the self-constituted judge and jury,” Mr. Armstrong replied, decisively, and then, suddenly bursting into a gust of passion, he added, furiously: “Rather would I see you hanged for the murder of that poor soulless butterfly, Sibyl St. Alban, than lift a finger to save you! Man, do you guess who I am whom you are begging to save you from the consequences of your double sin?” Every one stared in amazement at this sudden change of manner in one whom they had always known as cold, reserved and proud. Oswald Ferris stammered, faintly: “I know nothing of you except your name!” A strange, cold smile curled the lips of John Armstrong. “No, you do not even know my name,” he said. “I am not John Armstrong as I call myself, and as these trusty comrades call me and believe me. I am a man supposed to be dead, a man to whom a costly monument has been erected by his widow. I am a man whose happiness was ruined like yours by Sibyl St. Alban, but who did not have the cruelty that you did, to kill her for her sin!”