He had gone over the evidence time and time again. He was a
conscientious man. He felt that the law of the State had been defied--
had been outraged--and yet within his heart was that natural feeling
of sympathy and pity for the unfortunate being for whom but a few
short weeks of life remained, and he could not help regretting the
part he had been obliged to take in convicting the young man.
At that moment, a clerk entered and said that a young lady wished to
see him. In obedience to the direction given, the clerk withdrew; the
door was opened again, and a blue eyed, fair-haired girl entered.
Standing near the district attorney's desk, she said:
"Mr. Harlow, as there is no one here to introduce me, I will
introduce myself. My name is Mary Dana. My father is, or rather was,
a detective for seventeen years in Boston, but our present abiding
place is the town of Fernborough. In the city he often used to tell
me of the cases on which he was working, and I would try to solve
them with him. Robert Wood lived in Fernborough, and from the day of
his arrest I have been much interested in the case, and with the help
of my father and a friend of mine, Quincy Adams Sawyer, the son of
the former governor, I have been trying to find the man who murdered
Mr. Ellicott,--for I have never believed that Robert Wood was the
guilty person." She smiled, and added, "Detectives, I believe, are
more often interested in strengthening evidence, and bringing about
imprisonment and executions than they are in trying to prove people
innocent.
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