The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-04-23
A Powerful New Story By
Author of "The Leavenworth Case"

! the dear, if unworthy, center of all that
noble mans hopes, aims and happiness.
! But he could come upon no fact capa-
BILE of shaking the belief which had
/ seized upon him. Taking for truth ANA
bells account of what she had seen and
/ done on that fatal night-somethine
which he had hesitated over the previ-
1 Gus day, but which he now found him
I self forced TO accept or do violence to
! his own secret convictions-and adding
to it such facts as had come to his own
knowledge in his self-impOsed role OF
detective. he had but to test the events
of that night as thus completed by his
present theory of Frederick's guilty. 10
find them hang together in a way too
complete for mistake.
For what had been his reasons for
7 charging Amabel herself with the guilt
of a crime she only professed TO have
been a partial witness to?
There were many
First-The forced nature of her expla-
nations in regard to her motive for
leaving a merry ball and betaking her
self to the midnight road in her party
dress and slippers? A woman of her
well known unsympathetic nature
might use the misery of the labels as
preteXt for slipping into town at
night, but never would be influenced
by II as 4 motive.
otCOuu- He euudliy UNSATISFACTORY
nature of the reasons she gave for
leaving the course she had marked out
for herself and entering upon the pur
suit Of an unknown man into house
in which she had no personal interest.
and from which she had Just seen a
bloody dagger thrown out. The most
callous ot women would have shrunk
from letting her curiosity carry her
thus far.
1a nr4xr e l,nr
after having braved so much in her de-
sire to identify this criminal. she was
SO frightened at his near approach as
to fail to lift her head when the op
7portunity was given her to recognize
him.
Fourth-Her professed inability to
account for the presence of the orchid
from her hair being found in the room
with Batsy
Eifth-Her evident attempt to throw
the onus Of the crime on an old man.
evidently incapable from physical
causes of committing it.
SiXth-The improbability, which she
herself would have recognized of this
old man in his extremely weak condi-
ton, ignoring the hiding places offered
by the woods back of his own house,
for the sake of one not only involving
a long walk. but situated close to a
much-frequented road, and almost in
view of the Sutherland mansion.
Seventh-The transparent excuse of
sympathy for and desire to save the old
man from the consequences of his
crime. which she offered in extenua-
ton of her own criminal avowal of hay
ing first found and then reburied the
ill-gotten gains she had come upon in
her persistent pursuit Of the flying
criminal. So impulsive an act might
be consistent with the blind compassion
of some weak-headed but warm-heart-
ed women, but not with her Self-inteT-
ested nature, incapable of performing
any heroic deed. save from personal
motiN IS or the most headlong passion.
Lastly-The weakness of her eXpla-
nation in regard to the causes which
led her to peer into the label cottage
through a hole made in the window
shade. Curiosity has its limits, even in
a woman's breast, and unless she hoped
to see more than her words Indicated,
her action was but the precursor of
personal entrance into a room where
we have every reason to believe the $50
bill was left
A telling record and sufficient to ia
vor the theory of her personal guilt if,
after due thought. certain facts in con-
tradiction to this assumption had not
offered themselves to his mind even be
fore he thought of Frederick as the m
known man she hdQ lOllOWeu uOWu the
hillside, as, for instance:
The crime if committed by her. was
done deliberately and with a premedi-
tation antedating her departure from
the ballroom. Yet she went upon this
errand in slippers, white slippers at
that. something which SO cool and cal
culating a woman would have avoided,
however careless she might have shown
herself in other regards.
Inc
in the dullest breast; but she. keen be-
yond most men even, and so self-poised
that the most searching examination
could not shake her self-control, be-
trayed an utter careiessness as to what
she did with these slippers on her re-
turn, thrusting them into a place easily
accessible to the most casual search
Had she been conscious of guilt, and
thus amenable to law, the sight of
blood and mud stains on those slippers
would have appalled, her. and she
would have made some attempt to de-
stToy them, and not put them behind
a picture and forgotten them. as her
very evident lack of anxiety in regard
to them proves her to have done.
Again. would she have been SO care
less with flower she knew to be iden-
titled with herself? A woman who de-
liberately involves herself in crime has
quick eyes. She would have seen that
flower fall At all events, if she had
been Immediately responsible for its be-
ing on the scene of crime, she would.
with her quick wit, have found some
excuse or explanation for it. and not
have flung her defiance at the law in
some such words as these: 1T is fact
for you to explain. l only know that l
did not carry it to the scene of muir
der"
aain had she been actuated in l,er
attempt to fix the crime upon old
James label. by a personal conscious
ness of guilt and personal dread, she