“It seems strange that I have married the beautiful girl that always detested my friend Percy. Naturally he is furious, but then he was always jealous of every woman I spoke to, and he did not wish me to marry at all. How strange he is at times! I wish most sincerely I had never met him. He is not what my fancy painted him in our first acquaintance. How dearly I loved him then, and how much I was deceived in him. He is a consummate actor. “My wife dislikes and dreads him. What if she knew that in a wild spasm of jealous rage he once threatened to end my life and then his own. Decidedly he is insane. I must write to his brother, I must tell him it would be well to place poor Percy in confinement where he cannot injure himself nor any one else. This morning we had a stormy interview. I told him of certain malicious falsehoods he had promulgated against my wife, and that only because he was mentally unbalanced had I spared him the punishment that was his due. I told him he was forgiven for the sake of our past dear friendship, but that our further intimacy was obnoxious to my wife, and must come to an end. “At first he was furious, and vowed revenge on us both. I soothed him all I could, and he grew calmer, took an affecting leave of me, and vowed he was going at once to New York, never to see me again. I am more unnerved than I had thought possible by this affair. Poor boy, it is a sudden ending to what once promised to be a beautiful, life-long friendship. Only for that weak mind he would have been so noble. I am in no mood to attend the reception to-night. If my darling will excuse me I will remain at home. My thoughts follow poor Percy in his exile. But surely he will soon forget and make new friends.” The lawyer paused with his finger on the page, looked solemnly around at the sea of eager, upturned faces, and said impressively: “That is the last entry made in the diary of Ronald Vale, and it bears date the day of the murder. But here, following, are pages written in a different hand which we shall presently prove to be that of Percy Seabright.” The prisoner actually smiled complacently at this point, but ere Mr. Gardner could go on, a low groan of anguish rose upon the air. The next moment, Mrs. Vale sank fainting in her daughter’s arms. Never before for years had Mrs. Vale looked on the face of the man who had, with deadly malice, wrecked her whole life, and the sight of his cool, complacent face was more than she could bear. Mrs. Mays and the German professor kindly took her home, left her in Mrs. Severn’s care, and went back to the trial. When Mrs. Vale had gone, another lady took her place at Italy’s side. It was Mrs. Murray, deeply veiled and very undemonstrative, but taking an eager interest in the proceedings. Under cover of the momentary confusion attending the exit of Mrs. Vale, she found time to whisper nervously to Italy: