"How could I see Richard dragged down in the dust in this fashion, and not be mortified and indignant?" "You don't believe anything at all of this?" "Do _you?"_ asked Margaret, looking through and through him. "I confess I am troubled." "If you doubt Richard for a second," said Margaret, with a slight quiver of her lip, "that will be the bitterest part of it to me." "I don't give any more credit to Mr. Taggett's general charges than you do, Margaret; but I understand their gravity better. A perfectly guiltless man, one able with a single word to establish his innocence, is necessarily crushed at first by an accusation of this kind. Now, can Richard set these matters right with a single word? I am afraid he has a world of difficulty before him." "When he returns he will explain everything. How can you question it?" "I do not wish to; but there are two things in Mr. Taggett's story which stagger me. The motive for the destruction of Shackford's papers,--that's not plain; the box of matches is a puerility unworthy of a clever man like Mr. Taggett, and as to the chisel he found, why, there are a hundred broken chisels in the village, and probably a score of them broken in precisely the same manner; but, Margaret, did Richard ever breathe a word to you of that quarrel with his cousin?" "No." "He never mentioned it to me either. As matters stood between you and him, nothing was more natural than that he should have spoken of it to you,--so natural that his silence is positively strange." "He may have considered it too unimportant. Mr. Shackford always abused Richard; it was nothing new. Then, again, Richard is very proud, and perhaps he did not care to come to us just at that time with family grievances. Besides, how do we know they quarreled? The village is full of gossip." "I am certain there was a quarrel; it was only necessary for those two to meet to insure that. I distinctly remember the forenoon when Richard went to Welch's Court; it was the day he discharged Torrini." A little cloud passed over Margaret's countenance. "They undoubtedly had angry words together," continued Mr. Slocum, "and we are forced to accept the Hennessey girl's statement. The reason you suggest for Richard's not saying anything on the subject may suffice for us, but it will scarcely satisfy disinterested persons, and doesn't at all cover another circumstance which must be taken in the same connection." "What circumstance?" "His silence in regard to Lemuel Shackford's note,--a note written the day before the murder, and making an appointment for the very night of it." The girl looked steadily at her father. "Margaret!" exclaimed Mr. Slocum, his face illuminated with a flickering hope as he met her untroubled gaze, "did Richard tell _you?"_ "No," replied Margaret.