Sitting by the lamp in his hut, Durgan went over the envelopes. The first was dated ten years before; it contained the notorious Claxton trial, reported by the _New York Tribune_. The next was the case of the Wadham pearls, from the London _Times_. Durgan was not familiar with the case, and became interested in the story of the girl, very young and beautiful, who, being above temptation of poverty and above reproach, had been sentenced, on convincing evidence, for theft and perjury. The common interest in these cases obviously was that in both the accused was a gentlewoman, and the evidence overwhelming, altho chiefly circumstantial. The cases that came after did not follow this thread of connection. They were stories of such crimes as may almost be considered accidental, in which respectable people fall a prey to unexpected temptation or sudden mania. The last selection was from the _Galignani Messenger_. It was the case of a parish priest, apparently a _dilettante_ and esthetic personage of highly religious temperament, who was condemned for having killed his sister with sudden brutality, and who gave the apparently insane excuse that, seeing her in the dusk, he had thought her a spirit, and been so terrified that he knew not what he did. The date of this last story was only about three years after the first. Next day, when Bertha passed by on her horse, Durgan told her what he had found. "Oh, I am sure we don't want them," said she. "Burn them with the rest." She was wearing a deep sun-bonnet; he could hardly see her face in its shade. Durgan had very naturally tried to fit the circumstances of any of these stories of crime to a domestic tragedy which might have resulted in the hiding of these sisters and in Bertha's fears; but none of them seemed to meet the case, nor did any story he could devise. Since the opening of the letters, and Bertha's words in the moonlight, he had wondered more than once whether she believed in some ghostly enemy. Durgan had been rudely jostled against such fantasies in his domestic experience. His wife was nominally a spiritualist, and altho he was inclined, from knowledge of her character, to suppose her faith more a matter of convenience than of conviction, he had reason to think that the man who had long dominated her life under the guise of a spiritual instructor was, or had been, entirely convinced of his own power to communicate with the spirit world. This man had believed himself to see apparitions and hear voices. Durgan did not believe such experiences to be spiritual, but gave more weight to the question of such a belief in Bertha than if he had not already rubbed against the dupe of such a monomania. The subject was not a pleasant one, yet, in connection with this painful theme, Durgan resolved to speak to Bertha in the hope of inducing confidence and perhaps driving away her fears. Chapter XI THE MYSTERIOUS 'DOLPHUS