Now, although I knew De Chevron to be a hardened villain and capable of
any atrocity, I did not see myself how he could possibly be connected
with the murder, he being absent from the village at the time. Neither
did I for a moment believe John Archer capable of the crime. The
evidence against him was singularly unfortunate, it is true; but no one
who knew the man as intimately as we did could really have believed him
guilty. It was clear that someone must have committed the murder. Who,
then, was likely to have done so? De Chevron was a villain, we knew, but that was no proof that he was the
murderer. However, I excused this seeming unreasonableness in my friend,
considering the state of her mind at the time, and merely suggested:

"But he is in London, my dear." "I tell you he is mixed up in the affair," persisted Claribel. "I was
warned of this in my dream." "I fear that would have little weight in a court of justice," I replied. "De Chevron is the murderer, and no one else," she persisted, doggedly. "But, my dear Claribel," said I, soothingly, "allowing that he is a
wicked, heartless villain, just think for a moment how you would support
your accusation in a court of law. A pedlar is found murdered in a
ditch, and a gentleman of De Chevron's condition now in London, where he
has been for the last week, is accused of the murder. Consider the
absurdity of the idea." "How do you know he has been in London all the time?" asked my friend. "Well, I grant you, I did not see him go," said I; "but when a man
gives out that he is going away from a place, and has not been seen by
anyone since, especially when it is in a little village like this, where
everybody knows everybody else's business, the probability is that he
has left." "Do not be too sure," said Claribel. "We must examine into the affair." "Oh, that is easily done," said I; "but even should he not have
departed, if he should have changed his mind and remained here, what
does that prove? Besides, what motive could a gentleman have in taking
the life of a poor, unknown, itinerant pedlar?" "To lay the blame on John Archer, his rival, and get him into trouble,"
was my friend's reply. "Do you not think him capable?" "I think him capable of anything that's bad," said I; "but that's not
the point. You must, first of all, have reason enough on your side to
prove that he did, which you have not. Look, now, at the evidence
against young Archer. A young man returns home to his family after
midnight, his clothes disordered and bloodstained, his gun discharged,
and the butt end of it clotted with blood. When questioned, he is unable
to give any satisfactory account of himself. Says he remembers nothing
but having accepted one glass of wine from a pedlar. He relates that he
woke up towards midnight and discovered that he had been sleeping for
hours in the open air, near to the spot where the body of the pedlar is
found on the day following. "His friends do not believe him guilty because, forsooth, he has earned
a reputation for truthfulness, steadiness, and sobriety; yet might not
the opposite party contend that it was not impossible that he might,
once in his life, have broken through his custom of rigid abstinence,
and in a moment of intoxication, picking a quarrel with the pedlar,
first discharged his gun at him--for, remember that the bullet extracted
from the pedlar's shoulder has been recognised as Archer's bullet--and
afterwards, finding his adversary not mortally wounded, had hastened his
death by knocking out his brains with the butt end of his rifle. That he
had afterwards himself fallen into a drunken sleep and entirely
forgotten the events of the preceding evening is not at all impossible. This would be the more charitable way of looking at the affair; but,
alas, there is another circumstance that puts it in a more serious
light, and that is the hiding of the body. The body has been discovered
in a ditch, carefully concealed from view by weeds and brambles. This
argues reason. Is it probable that a man who commits homicide in a
drunken brawl, being so drunk at the time as to fall down on the damp
ground and sleep there the whole night through, that he should have been
sufficiently master of himself to drag off the body of his victim and
successfully conceal it from view in an overgrown ditch?" "I cannot and will not believe him so base as to be guilty of wilful
murder, neither will I believe that he committed homicide in a fit of
intoxication. If he took the pedlar's life at all--I say _if_ he
did--why, then I lean towards the belief that he did it whilst under
some evil spell of Richard de Chevron's. What do you believe, Molly?" "No matter, dear, what I believe," said I; "I am a woman, like yourself,
and too likely to be influenced by my feelings. I do not wish to believe
him guilty, and should be very much surprised and horror-struck if he
really were so, after the good opinion we all have had of him. But all
that goes for nothing. I merely tell you how the world will judge him." Poor Claribel could not help seeing that it was likely to go hard with
John. "Oh! if they should condemn him unjustly and execute him!" she cried, in
agony. Poor child! It was all I could do to comfort her. I told her the law was
not rash in condemning anyone to death; that inquiries would be made,
that the real perpetrator of the deed could not fail to be discovered,
sooner or later, when he would suffer the penalty of the law, and the
innocent man be acquitted. I had attempted to excite hopes in her that I
myself dared hardly entertain, and that she, poor child, I could see,
looked upon as poor consolation. We both retired to rest that night with heavy hearts, but the next
morning Claribel woke up with a smile on her face, although she looked
very pale and worn. "Molly, dear, I saw him last night," she said. "Did you, really? What, John Archer?" I asked, for I no longer now
doubted her word when she spoke in this manner. "Yes," she replied, "and I promised to call again to give him
consolation." "How did you manage to speak to him?" I asked. "By signs only; but he understood me." "Was he asleep?" I asked. "No; he was tossing restlessly on his pallet." "Then he could not possibly imagine he had been dreaming." "I think not, as this is the second time I have appeared to him in the
spirit." "I remember you told me once before that you had seen him, and he
himself confirmed it, although I know that you never left the house that
day. But, tell me, did no one see you enter?" "What matter if they did? Bolts and bars are no obstacles to a spirit." "And you passed through prison walls and bolted doors without
opposition?" "I did, and I promised that I should be with him again in his cell as
the clock struck two, so that he might be quite sure that he had not
been dreaming." "You will keep your appointment, of course?" I said. "If I do not, I do not know who it will be that will prevent me."