"Do you know that he is to marry my daughter?"
"You may spare me that. It is quite unnecessary. You have fallen into some horrible delusion. I hope you will be able to explain it."
"You actually imagine that Richard Shackford--Pshaw! It's simply impossible!"
"I am too young a man to wish even to seem wiser than you, but my experience has taught me that nothing is impossible."
"I begin to believe so myself. I suppose you have grounds, or something you consider grounds, for your monstrous suspicion. What are they? I demand to be fully informed of what you have been doing in the yard, before you bring disgrace upon me and my family by inconsiderately acting on some wild theory which perhaps ten words can refute."
"I should be in the highest degree criminal, Mr. Slocum, if I were to make so fearful an accusation against any man unless I had the most incontestable evidence in my hands."
Mr. Taggett spoke with such cold-blooded conviction that a chill crept over Mr. Slocum, in spite of him.
"Up to the present stage, purely circumstantial."
"I can imagine that," said Mr. Slocum, with a slight smile.
"But so conclusive as to require no collateral evidence. The testimony of an eye-witness of the crime could scarcely add to my knowledge of what occurred that Tuesday night in Lemuel Shackford's house."
"Indeed, it is all so clear! But of course a few eye-witnesses will turn up eventually," said Mr. Slocum, whose whiteness about the lips discounted the assurance of his sarcasm.
"That is not improbable," returned Mr. Taggett.
"They are not easily stated. I have kept a record of my work day by day, since the morning I entered the yard. The memoranda are necessarily confused, the important and the unimportant being jumbled together; but the record as it stands will answer your question more fully than I could, even if I had the time--which I have not--to go over the case with you. I can leave these notes in your hands, if you desire it. When I return from New York"--
"You are going to New York!" exclaimed Mr. Slocum, with a start. "When?"
"If you lay a finger on Richard Shackford, you will make the mistake of your life, Mr. Taggett!"
"I have other business there. Mr. Shackford will be in Stillwater to-morrow night. He engaged a state-room on the Fall River boat this morning."