The broken glass might have been placed upon the sill in order to promote the very theory which had been so gullibly adopted by the police, and the watch and chain hidden in the chimney for the same purpose.

They might have hanged the man who kept them; and surely this was not the first thief who had slunk away empty-handed after the committal of a crime infinitely greater than the one contemplated.
Rachel had never wavered in these ideas, but neither had she dwelt on them to any extent, and now they came one instant only to go the next.
Her husband was dead--that was once more the paramount thought--and she his widow had been acquitted on a charge of murdering him.

But for the moment she was thinking only of him, and her eyes hung over the spot where she had seen him sitting dead--once without dreaming it--and soon they filled.

Perhaps she was remembering all that had been good in him, perhaps all that had been evil in herself; her lips quivered, and her eyes filled.

But it was hard to pity one who was at rest, hard for her with the world to face afresh that night, without a single friend.