friend the real murderer? Did he not contrive to throw on F.D. the
suspicion of the murder? Might not the forgery itself from the very
beginning have been part of a plan to ruin F.D.? But why ruin him?
Evidently to gain some benefit. Now who has been more benefited by the
ruin of F.D.? Whoever he is, must he not he be the murderer and the
false friend?"

Again, a little further on: "Has any one gained any thing from the ruin
of F.D. but J.W.? Has not J.W. ever since had control of Dalton
property? Is he not rich now? Has not the ruin of F.D. made the fortune
of J.W.?"

Such was the substance of the papers which Edith perused. They were
voluminous, and she continued at her task all through that night, her
heart all the time filled with a thousand contending emotions.

Before her mind all the time there was the image of her father in the
judgment-hall. There he stood, the innocent man, betrayed by his
friend, and yet standing there in his simple faith and truth to save
that friend, obstinate in his self-sacrificing fidelity, true to faith
when the other had proved himself worthless, suffering what can only be
suffered by a generous nature as the hours and the days passed and the
end approached, and still the traitor allowed him to suffer. And there
was the hate and scorn of man, the clamor for vengeance from society,
the condemnation of the jury who had prejudged his case, the sneer of
the paid advocate, the scoff of the gaping crowd, to whom the plea of
_noblesse oblige_ and stainless honor and perfect truth seemed only
maudlin sentimentality and Quixotic extravagance.

All these thoughts were in Edith's mind as she read, and these feelings