“We have all been blind--blind!” she ejaculated. “Only to think how that man has fooled us all! What was that gleam I saw sometimes in those strange, glittering eyes of his? It was madness, I feel sure of it now. It is he--my father’s dearest friend, as they called him--who murdered my father. I must send for Mr. Gardner. I must tell him all my suspicions.” She went out and sent the message for the lawyer, then returned to the room and read and reread the revolting story, of that crime far away in the sunny southland where one beautiful young girl had murdered another one through insane love and jealousy. “It is the clue I needed, the key to the mystery of my father’s murder, but, oh, can I prove it? How cunningly the fiend has drawn the network of safety around himself, while he blackened my mother’s fame and then threw his crime on the innocent shoulders of Francis Murray. Oh, could my father have loved this wretch? Did he ever suspect aught of his treachery? What was written in that missing diary that my father guarded so jealously from every eye? Where is it now? Oh, I would give the world to know!” Mr. Gardner’s presence was announced at that moment, and she hurried down, to find him awaiting her in the little parlor quite alone. “Read this. Do not ask me why, but read it,” she cried, thrusting the _World_ into his hand. The lawyer adjusted his glasses and read, while she paced impatiently up and down like some beautiful caged creature. “Well?” he asked, laying the paper down. She paused in front of him, the incarnation of wild emotion, trembling, her eyes glowing like stars. “You have no clue yet?” she demanded hoarsely. “None. I have never chanced upon a more baffling mystery.” “You hold the key to it all in your hand,” she replied, with a gesture toward the paper. “Explain,” he cried eagerly. “Look you,” she said, “that girl was murdered by her dearest friend--mark you, her dearest friend! And my father, my poor father, met his death in the same fashion. The murderer is Percy Seabright!” “Impossible! He could prove an alibi. He was in New York.” “I do not believe it. Investigation might prove the falsity of the assertion. Let me tell you everything,” and she poured forth rapidly the facts her mother had told her on Christmas day. “Mrs. Vale did not tell me any of these facts,” he said, with a sudden frown. “She did not deem them of the least importance. It was merely by accident that she told me,” explained Italy.