The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-05-20

have added lo l-eA' ....-.4c.4o4, aIt uI l.i, I servants having gone to the police mems ball. It was on their return il l the early morning hours that she had been discovered lying i'll and injured before her sisters fireplace.
 One fact was mentioned which sci me thinking. The keys of the club house had been found lying on a table in the side hall of the Cumberland ready mentioned as missing from my pocket-an alarming discovery which might have acted as a cIew to the sus- picious feared if their presence there had not been explained by the wait ress who had cleared the table after dinner. Coming upon these keys lying on the floor beside one of the chairs she had carried them out into the hall and laid them where they would be more readily seen. She had not rec ognized the keys, but had taken 1t for granted that they belonged to MT. Ranelagh, who had dined at the house that night
 They were my keys, and have all ready related how I came to drop them on the floor. Had they but stayed there! Adelaide, or was it Carmel, might not have seen them and been led by some strange if not tragic pur- pose, incomprehensible 10 us now and possibly never to find full explanation, to enter the secret and forsaken spot where I later found them, the one dead, the other fleeing in frenzy, but not in such a thoughtless frenzy as to forget these keys or to fail to lock the clubhouse door behind her. That she on her return home should have had sufficient presence of mind to toss these keys down in the same place from which she or her sister had taken them argued well for her clear head edness up to that moment. The fever must have come on later.
 The next paragraph detailed a fact startling enough to rouse my deepest interest. Zadok Brown, the Cumber- lands coachman, declared that Ar thurs cutter and what he called the gray mare had been out that night. They were both in place when he re- turned to the stable toward early morning, but the signs were unmistak- able that both had been out in the snow since he left the stable at about g. He had locked the stable door at that time, but the key always hung in the kitchen where any one could get it. This was on account of Ar thur, who, if he wanted to go out late, sometimes harnessed horse himself. Zadok judged that he had done so this night. though how the horse happened to be back and in her stall and no Mir. Arthur in the house it would take wiser heads than his to explain.
 There was some comment made on this because Arthur had denied using his cutter that night. He declared in stead that he had gone out on foot and designated the coachman's tale as all bOsh.
 As for myself, I felt inclined to be- one or both of the women had har- messed her and that it was by these means they had reached the Whisper ing Pines. Adelaide was far from strong and never addicted to walking under the most favorable conditions I could understand now how Carmel had succeeded in returning in safety 10 her home She had ridden both ways--a theory which likewise explain cd how she came to wear a man's defby and possibly a mans overcoat With her skirts covered by a bearski, she would present a very fair figure O, a man to any one who chanced to pas: her.
 These were my deductions drawI from my own knowledge Would oth CTS wl.o had not my knowledge be il' anywise influenced to draw the same :. Yet. is they let this point slip. where should be? Human nature is human all the way through, and I could not help having moments when I asked myself if this young girl were worth the sacrifice I contemplated making for her. She was lovely to look at, amiable and of womanly promise save 1t those rare and poignant moments when passion would seize her in gust which drove everything before it. That she had had provocations did not doubt. Adelaide, for all her virtues. was not an easy person to deal with. Upright and perfectly sincere herself she had no sympathy with or com miseration for any lack of principle or any display of selfishness in others. She was a little cold, little reserved. a little lacking in spontaneity, though always correct and always generous in her gifts and often in her acts.