Chapter by chapter, piling sensation on sensation, Mrs. Green writes of Mrs. Scoville’s quest. There is the shadow of the man in the peaked cap seen advancing into Dark Hollow at the hour of the crime. There is the picture of Oliver Ostrander secreted in his father’s house with a band of black painted across the eyes. There is the point of a knife blade in the stick with which Etheridge was killed, and the blade from which it was broken lies folded in Oliver’s desk. A peaked cap hangs in Oliver’s closet! Just when every circumstance drives home the conviction of Oliver’s guilt Judge Ostrander shows Mrs. Scoville a written statement that establishes the fact of an earlier murder by her husband. She is taken all aback and for the moment she believes again that the right man was put to death for the murder of Etheridge. But the Judge allows her to look at the document a moment too long. It has been tampered with at the close; forgery has been done! Oliver must be found, for an accusation against him has got abroad and the police are looking for him. There is a race between the agents of the district attorney and the messengers of the Judge. He is found in a remote spot in the Adirondacks and flees, but whether to return home at his father’s summons or to escape to Canada, who knows? By a desperate drop over the side of a cliff he has landed in a tree top. The train is not due for fifteen minutes. He’ll catch it. “‘The train south?’ “‘Yes, and the train north. They pass here.’” Is it a return or a flight to escape? Thus, in chapter after chapter, Mrs. Green creates new suspense, introduces new thrills. As each lesser uncertainty is resolved a fresh one takes its place and always the great major questions hang unanswered over her story--till the very close. Then the one closed avenue to a solution is unbarred, the stunning surprise is sprung and the curtain falls swiftly on a stupefying dénouement. Between the big revelation and the very end of the tale there is just time enough and just explanation enough to convince the reader of what he would least have believed before. This faint outline of a capital story illustrates Mrs. Green’s talent. Now for the explanation. The whole art of it consists in a truly infinite capacity for taking pains. Before writing this story it was necessary to write, or get clearly in mind, the biographies of half a dozen people. Their lives had to be fully known to the author, even to innumerable incidents which would not be used in her story. Particularly was it necessary to know every aspect in the past of the relations of these people to each other.