She held in her hand the paper with the paragraph relating to the murder at Selwyn Heights. Her face was white with terror, and her voice shook as she uttered her vehement disclaimer to the doctor. “The case looks very dark against her,” he said, gravely, as he took the paper from her hand, and again ran his eyes hurriedly over it. It was the morning after Nina had run away from the care of her kind friends, and the daily paper had brought the news of the tragical occurrence at Selwyn Heights. They had wondered much what had happened to Nina to drive her from her home in despair, and now they held the key to the mystery. Love and jealousy had been at the bottom of it as they are at the bottom of most of the tragedies of life. “I will never believe that my sweet Nina is guilty of the murder,” Mrs. Fielding cried, loyally. “The deed was committed after she went away that night. I will go and show her this paper. I know she will be able to vindicate herself.” She rose hurriedly from the breakfast table and was leaving the room, but her husband intercepted her. “No, dear,” he said, “you must not do so. The consequence of such a procedure in my patient’s weak state would be most disastrous. If your faith in your friend’s innocence is so strong prove your loyalty by destroying that paper and never breathing to her one word of what you know.” Mrs. Fielding gazed at him in mute dismay for a moment, and then she threw the paper into the fire, saying simply: “I believe in Nina’s innocence just as firmly as I do in God and the angels, and I will do just as you say. I will never let her know that I have heard the things that bad and wicked people are saying about her.” “That will be best,” he said, and in their pity and tenderness over the stricken young wife they kept their knowledge to themselves, and Nina remained blindly ignorant of the terrible accusation and the awful peril that remained suspended like a sword over her head. The next day the Fielding’s morning paper, chronicled the attempted suicide of Nina at the drug-store. They read it with dismay. “She is now dead to her husband and to all the world should she choose to remain so,” the good physician said, gravely, to his wife. For Doctor Fielding had again become the instrument selected by Providence to snatch the wretched and desperate young creature from a reckless, self-sought death. When Nina had stolen from his door in the storm and darkness of the preceding night he had been on the opposite side of the street about returning from his professional call, and having his eyes fixed on the tiny, little cottage he called home he beheld a sight that momentarily thrilled him with alarm and dread.