rather an old-fashioned candelabrum with a half-burned candle in
one of its sockets. Hastily crossing to it, I felt of the
candlewick. It was quite stiff and hard. But not considering this
a satisfactory proof that it had not been lately burning - the tip
of a wick soon dries after the flame is blown out - I took out my
penknife and attacked the wick at what might be called its root;
whereupon I found that where the threads had been protected by the
wax they were comparatively soft and penetrable. The conclusion was
obvious. True to my instinct in this matter the woman had not
lifted her weapon in darkness; this candle had been burning. But
here my thoughts received a fresh shock. If burning, then by whom
had it since been blown out? Not by her; her wound was too fatally
sure for that. The steps taken between the table where the
candelabrum stood and the place where she lay, were taken, if taken
at all by her, before that shot was fired. Some one else - some one
whose breath still lingered in the air about me - had extinguished
this candle-flame after she fell, and the death I looked down upon
was not a suicide, but a murder.

The excitement which this discovery caused to tingle through my
every nerve had its birth in the ambitious feeling referred to in
the opening paragraph of this narrative. I believed that my
long-sought-for opportunity had come; that with the start given me
by the conviction just stated, I should be enabled to collect such
clues and establish such facts as would lead to the acceptance of
this new theory instead of the apparent one of suicide embraced by
Hibbard and about to be promulgated at police headquarters. If so,
what a triumph would be mine; and what a debt I should owe to the
crabbed old gentleman whose seemingly fantastic fears had first
drawn me to this place!