Henshaw was looking at him with a sort of malicious curiosity. In spite
of his smartness he seemed at a loss to divine what the other was driving
at, unless it were a well-studied line of bluff. But that Gifford could
have, apart from what Edith Morriston might have told him, any intimate
knowledge of the tragedy was inconceivable.

"I shall be glad to hear what you have to say, Mr. Gifford," he
responded, in perhaps much greater curiosity than he chose to show.

"Then I have to inform you positively," Gifford answered, "that your
brother's fatal wound was the result of a pure accident."

Coming from Edith Morriston's champion, there was nothing surprising in
that assertion. Certainly if that were the other's strong suit he could
easily beat it. It was therefore in a tone of confidence and relief that
he demanded, "You can prove it?"

"I can."

"By Miss Morriston's testimony?"

"Not at all. By my own."

"Your own?" Henshaw's question was put with a curling lip.

"My own," Gifford repeated steadfastly.

"May one ask what you mean by that?"

Henshaw's contemptuous incredulity was by no means diminished even by the
other's confident attitude.

Gifford gave a short laugh. "Naturally you do not take my meaning.
Obviously you think I am not a competent witness, that I know nothing
except by hearsay. You are, extraordinary as it may seem, quite wrong.
My testimony would be of nothing but what I myself saw and heard."

"What do you mean?" Henshaw had for a moment seemed to be calculating the
probability of this monstrous suggestion being a fact, and had dismissed
it with the contempt which showed itself in his question.

"I mean," Gifford replied with quiet assurance, "that I happened to be a
witness of the interview in the tower-room between your brother and Miss
Morriston, that I was there when he received his death-wound, and that it
was I whom the girl Haynes saw descending by a rope from the top window."

Henshaw had started to his feet, his face working with an almost
passionate astonishment. "You--you tell me all that," he cried, "and
expect me to believe it?"

"I have told you and shall tell you nothing," was the cool reply, "that I
am not prepared to state on oath in the witness-box."

For a while Henshaw seemed without the power to reply, dumbfounded, as
his active brain tried to realize the probabilities of the declaration.
"It seems to me," he said at length in a voice of which he was scarcely