On examination, the woman proved to be the missing servant-girl. She was pregnant, and had evidently been murdered with a surgeon’s instrument, which was found entangled among her clothes. Upon this, in consequence of his known connection with her, and his implied self-accusation to the inspectors, the young man was apprehended on suspicion of being the guilty party, and tried upon the circuit. He was the last person seen in her company, immediately previous to her disappearance; and there was, altogether, such strong presumptive evidence against him, as corroborated by what occurred on the green would have justified a verdict of guilty. But, strange to say, this last most important item in the evidence failed, and he established an incontrovertible _alibi_; it being proved, beyond all possibility of doubt, that he had been in church from the beginning of the service to the end of it. He was, therefore, acquitted; while the public were left in the greatest perplexity, to account as they could for this extraordinary discrepancy. The young man was well known to the inspectors, and it was in broad daylight that they had met him and placed his name in their books. Neither, it must be remembered, were they seeking for him, nor thinking of him, nor of the woman, about whom there existed neither curiosity nor suspicion. Least of all, would they have sought her where she was, but for the hint given to them. The interest excited, at the time, was very great; but no natural explanation of the mystery has ever been suggested. CHAPTER IX. APPARITIONS.