“Good!” he almost shouted.

“You have discovered something?” asked Tom Ostrello quickly.

“Yes, I have discovered a great deal.  I think the murder mystery is as good as solved.”

CHAPTER XXVIII

WHAT HAPPENED TO MARGARET

It is said by specialists that the human brain can stand just so much, and no more.  The tension becomes so great—­something snaps—­and then?  The question is one, hard, if not impossible, to answer.

So it was with poor Margaret, hounded by the well-meaning but ignorant officers of the law of the community in which the double crime had been committed.  So searching had been the questions put, so strong the accusations, that the reasoning powers of the girl were completely shattered.  She imagined herself guilty—­imagined herself being taken to prison, to be hung or electrocuted, and in a hundred ways suffered the mental tortures of the eternally condemned.

Then came a change, when she grew hysterical and laughed softly to herself.  No! no! she must not let them hang or electrocute her!  It would be too much of a disgrace!  She must escape such a fearful fate!

But how?  There could be but one answer to that question.  She must contrive in some way to outwit her enemies—­she must escape—­must fly to some place where they would never be able to find her.

It is said that those who are insane are usually shrewd, and so it was in Margaret’s case.  She prepared to run away, but she did not allow the nurse or the doctor to become aware of what she was doing.  She waited until the doctor had made another call, and then asked the nurse to fix her something special to eat.

“Why, yes, I’ll get whatever you wish, my dear!” said the nurse, and went below to prepare the food.

No sooner had the woman disappeared than Margaret leaped from her bed and began to dress.  All of her things, even to her hat, were in a closet of the bedroom, so this was easy.

“How shall I go?” she asked herself.  She knew, from the talk she had heard, that a policeman was somewhere around, watching the house.  She looked out of a window and saw him, leaning against a fence, taking occasional sly puffs from a pipe he held in the hollow of his hand.

She did not dare descend the stairs.  She looked out of the window.  It was not very far to the roof of a porch, and against the porch was a trellis, with a wealth of honeysuckle growing upon it.

How she did it, Margaret could not afterwards remember.  But she crawled forth from the window, and climbed down the trellis as if it were a ladder.  The sweet scent of the honeysuckle made her sick, and she came close to falling in a faint at the foot of the vines.

Reaching the ground, she stared around like a frightened fawn seeking to hide from the hunters.  Then, without knowing why, she sped for the river bank.