"In answer to the first objection, he claims that someone interested in the murderer's welfare might have rebolted the window upon entering the room. That would of course mean either your father or myself. To the second, that whoever committed the crime feared to enter the hall by the window after the house had been aroused. To the third, there is positive evidence of the presence of someone having been upon the roof, at Mr. Ashton's window."

"What evidence?" She seemed greatly alarmed; her clenched hands and rapid breathing indicated some intense inward emotion.

"The faint print of a hand—in blood, upon the window sill. With these things to[86] face, Miss Temple, you will, I'm sure, see the advisability of explaining fully your departure from the house, and your return, in order that the investigations of the police may be turned in other directions, where the guilt lies, instead of in yours, where, I am sure, it does not." I fully expected, after telling her this, that she would insist upon returning to the house at once and clearing herself fully, but what was my amazement as I observed her pallor, her agitation, the nervous clenching of her hands, increase momentarily as I laid the Sergeant's theory before her! She seemed suddenly stricken with terror. "I can say nothing, nothing whatever," she answered, pathetically, her face a picture of anguish.

[86]

I felt alarmed, and indeed greatly disappointed at her manner. Limiting the crime to three persons, one of whom must have been upon the porch roof a little before daybreak, I saw at once that suspicion must inevitably fall upon either Miss Temple or[87] her father. In the first instance—McQuade's theory that Miss Temple herself committed the gruesome deed seemed borne out by all the circumstances, but, if not, there could be but one plausible explanation of her unwillingness to speak: she must have seen the murderer upon the roof, and for that reason rushed back into the house. In this event, however, she would certainly have no desire to shield anyone but her father—and he, in turn might have re-entered the hallway through the window before I had thrown on my clothes and left my room after hearing the cry. He, also, to cover up his crime, had he indeed committed it, might have rebolted the window from within while I was examining the body of the murdered man, as McQuade had suggested. I remembered now that Major Temple had excluded everyone from the room but ourselves, and shut the door as soon as the murder was discovered. To suppose that Miss Temple was the guilty[88] person was to me out of the 

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