to fill the room with her terror. And, struck with pity, I forgot that
Mary Leavenworth had spoken, forgot her very presence in fact, and,
turning hastily away, took one step toward her cousin, when Mr. Gryce's
hand falling on my arm stopped me.

"Miss Leavenworth speaks," said he.

Recalled to myself, I turned my back upon what had so interested me
even while it repelled, and forcing myself to make some sort of reply
to the fair creature before me, offered my arm and led her toward the
door.

Immediately the pale, proud countenance of Mary Leavenworth softened
almost to the point of smiling;--and here let me say, there never was
a woman who could smile and not smile like Mary Leavenworth. Looking in
my face, with a frank and sweet appeal in her eyes, she murmured:

"You are very good. I do feel the need of support; the occasion is
so horrible, and my cousin there,"--here a little gleam of alarm
nickered into her eyes--"is so very strange to-day."

"Humph!" thought I to myself; "where is the grand indignant
pythoness, with the unspeakable wrath and menace in her countenance,
whom I saw when I first entered the room?" Could it be that she was
trying to beguile us from our conjectures, by making light of her
former expressions? Or was it possible she deceived herself so far as
to believe us unimpressed by the weighty accusation overheard by us at
a moment so critical?

But Eleanore Leavenworth, leaning on the arm of the detective, soon