As Durgan kept silence, Alden spoke again. "I ought to explain to you, perhaps with an apology, why I suggested that the person referred to in the erased line may have been Mrs. Durgan. By mere accident I heard, a year after the trial, a piece of gossip which first made me pitch on that one letter as probably genuine. I am loth to mention it to you, for it appeared to be trivial talk about a mere mistake. A man who had belonged to that somewhat secret circle of Beardsley's was telling me that Beardsley knew nothing of society, and was, like all lower-class men, at first quite unaccustomed to the idea of mere friendship between men and women, and, as an illustration of this, he went on to say what I am referring to. Mrs. Durgan and Claxton seemed to have discovered some spiritual affinity. The spirits, I understood, sometimes spoke through Mrs. Durgan and sent messages to him----" "She said they did?" "Personally, of course, I don't believe in such communications, but we may believe that Mrs. Durgan believed----" "I was not entering into that question. I merely wish to be clear as to what occurred." "Yes; I understood that Mrs. Durgan said they sent messages of an agreeable and flattering nature; and Beardsley suspected that they were not genuine, and, being a person of primitive ideas, showed disapproval. He thought they indicated undue interest in Claxton on Mrs. Durgan's part. The man told me that all who knew of the incident laughed at Beardsley's lack of knowledge of the world. He gave me to understand no one thought the incident of any importance, and all had the good feeling not to speak of it after poor Claxton's death." "Did they suppose Beardsley to be jealous?" "Not at all. My informant, a man of the world, represented him as having the idea that a high moral tone was necessary to insure the success of his entertainments, and that these flattering messages were not in harmony with such a tone." "You heard this a year ago and no suspicion of Beardsley entered your mind?" "No. How should it? My informant ended his chat by remarking how well Mrs. Durgan knew how to disarm criticism, for, instead of being offended, she had most charitably supported the simple moralist during years of ill health." "It is easy to be wise after the event," said Durgan; and then he asked: "What are you going to do now?" "The chief thing we have got to consider is that, although these letters, and above all, those I have not yet shown you, confirm the mulatto's tale that Beardsley was at the house, we have as yet no explanation whatever of the crime, and no reason whatever to accuse Beardsley of it beyond the fact that he was there. I do not see how to get further except by discovering a clue to Miss Claxton's conduct. The kernel of the secret lies there."