Anxious-minded and hopeless of aid, the minister resumed his upward way, and shortly reached the brow of the hill, where the corn-lands stretched towards Poldew. Unconsciously his feet had led him into the very path along which Bithiah must have passed to her mysterious death. The omen chilled him for the moment, but shaking off the superstition, as incompatible with his calling as a teacher, he stepped resolutely along the grassy way which meandered through the stubble field. Some power drew him, almost against his will, towards the fatal spot. As he walked along he caught sight of a burly figure bending down in the field. As he approached he recognized Jeremiah Slade. Knowing neither the man's ambitions nor the interest he took in the case, Johnson wondered what he was doing so near the place where the body had been found. His curiosity being excited, he crossed the ridgy furrows, and walked up to the policeman. "What are you looking for, Slade?" Jeremiah straightened himself, and a light came into his dull blue eye. "I ain't lookin' now," said he, cunningly, "as I've found something already--something as is worth the findin' too." "What is it?" "You seem mighty anxious to know, sir," was the constable's reply, with a suspicious glance. "Naturally, I wish to know anything bearing upon the fate of poor Bithiah." "Ah," grunted Slade, "there's more than you, sir, as wants information of that kind. But why are you so perticler, may I ask, if it ain't no offence?" "For two reasons," rejoined Johnson, quietly. "One is, that I wish the assassin of my poor ward to be secured and punished; the other is that I desire to clear my own character from the suspicion which has fallen upon it." "You mean, sir, as folks suspect you of the murder?" "I do; but I need hardly say that I am innocent." "Well," said the policeman, reflectively, "of course, sir, you're bound to say that to save your own neck. I thought as you did it yourself one time, for there ain't no denyin' as the evidence is dead against you. But what I've found now 'as altered me a bit." "Really! Then you are good enough to exonerate me in your own mind? You don't believe me guilty?" said Johnson, ironically. "Not as the principal, anyway; it's come to me as this poor girl was strangled by a woman." "A woman? How do you know that?" "'Cos I found this on the very spot where the girl's body lay," and Slade opened his hand. In the palm lay a golden ear-ring, which Johnson recognized as Miss Arnott's! CHAPTER XI "THOU ART THE MAN"