"Just so--you take my meaning," agreed Triffitt. "Well, at first nobody saw any reason to doubt this theory, for the lady had been seen staggering along that path more than once. But she had a brother, a canny Scot who was not over well pleased when he found that his sister--who had come into everything that old Ferguson left, which was a comfortable bit--had made a will not very long before her death in which she left absolutely everything to her new husband, Francis Bentham. The brother began to inquire and to investigate--and to cut the story short, within a fortnight of his wife's death, Bentham was arrested and charged with her murder." "On what evidence?" asked Carver. "Precious little!" answered Triffitt. "Indeed next to none. Still, there was some. It was proved that he was absent from the house for half an hour or so about the time that she would be coming along that path; it was also proved that certain footprints in the clay of the path were his. He contended that he had been to look for her; he proved that he had often been to look for her in that way; moreover, as to the footprints, he, like everybody in the house, constantly used that path in going to the town." "Aye, to be sure," said Carver. "He'd a good case, I'm thinking." "He had--and so I thought at the time," continued Triffitt. "And so a good many folks thought--and they, and I, also thought something else, I can tell you. I know what the verdict of the crowded court would have been!" "What?" asked Carver. "Guilty!" exclaimed Triffitt. "And so far as I'm concerned, I haven't a doubt that the fellow pushed her over the cliff. But opinion's neither here nor there. The only thing that mattered, my son, was the jury's verdict!" "And the jury's verdict was--what?" demanded Carver. Triffitt winked into his empty tankard and set it down with a bang. "The jury's verdict, my boy," he answered, "was one that you can only get across the Border. It was '_Not Proven_'!" CHAPTER XV YOUNG BRAINS Carver, who had been listening intently to the memory of a bygone event, pushed away the remains of his frugal lunch, and shook his head as he drew out a cigarette-case. "By gad, Triff, old man!" he said. "If I'd been that chap I'd rather have been hanged, I think. Not proven, eh?--whew! That meant----"