Either he knew McBride's murderer and testified falsely to shield him; or else he knew nothing and had been hired by some unknown enemy to swear North into the penitentiary; or--and the third possibility seemed not unlikely--it was he himself that had clambered over the shed roof after killing and robbing the old merchant.
North turned on his cot and his thoughts turned with him from Montgomery to Gilmore, who also, with uncharacteristic cowardliness had fled the scene of his illegal activities and the indictment that threatened him anew.

"What was the gambler's part in the tragedy ?" He hated North; he loved Marshall Langham's wife.

But neither of these passions shaped themselves into murderous motives.

Langham himself furnished food for reflection and speculation.

Evidently in the most dire financial difficulties; evidently under Gilmore's domination; evidently burdened with some guilty knowledge,--but there was no evidence against him, he had credibly accounted for himself on that Thanksgiving afternoon, and North for the hundredth time dismissed him with the exclamation: "Marsh Langham a murderer?
Impossible!" The first cold rays of light, announcing the belated winter's dawn, touched with gray fingers the still grayer face of the sleepless prisoner.