'Stay,' said Mrs. Jenkins, lifting her hand in supplication; 'stay and hear me out. It was wicked, I know, but what were we to do, we were near starving then? And besides, Trenton Warren knew the hold that he had over Ephraim, and would have exercised it had there been the slightest attempt to thwart him. What his motive for this duplicity may have been, I know not, except that, being a motive of Trenton Warren's, it was sure to be a bad one.' 'It was your husband, then, who was at Chicago, and not Trenton Warren?' said Thornton Carey. 'The information which I received at his office as to his being at Chicago was, then, false?' 'As to his being at Chicago, certainly, said Mrs. Jenkins; for part of the time at least he has been in England, and not in Chicago, for my poor Ephraim told me so.' 'In England!' cried Helen, speaking for the first time. 'Yes, dear madam; my poor Ephraim was here yesterday; he had come up from Chicago in great trouble, in consequence of not having heard from his brother, and also fearing that the telegram which Mr. Carey addressed to Mr. Warren was really meant for him, and imagining that I was ill; and I had a long talk with him here in this very house; and I told him that come what might he must break with this horrible connection, and assert himself, and turn over a new leaf; and live like an honest man in the future. He said, at first, it was impossible; but I told him we should find friends to help us; above all, you, my dear madam, who have been so kind to me. And then he seemed to be convinced, and he told me he would do all I asked him, and he left me with the intention of becoming a reformed man; and now he is dead--for I am sure it was he who was killed on the railway, and not Trenton Warren--he is dead, and I shall never see him more.' While Mrs. Jenkins was concluding this speech, Helen had been writing with a pencil on a slip of paper. As the poor woman finished speaking she burst into a flood of tears, and seemed so thoroughly overcome that Helen judged it better that Thornton Carey should leave the room; and Helen motioned him to do so. As he passed by her, she placed in his hand the paper on which she had been writing. Immediately on gaining the library he opened it, and read these words: 'As sure as God is in heaven, Trenton Warren is the man who has murdered my husband.'