exact facts. Only yourself and one other
person whom we know can supply them. I allude to the lady you saw, first
in front of and then behind the girl who was shot. Her story has been
told. Yours will doubtless coincide with it. May I ask you, then, to
satisfy us on a point you were in a better position than herself to take
note of. It is this: When the young girl gave that bound forward of which
you both speak, did she make straight for the railing in front, or did
she approach it in a diagonal direction?"

"I do not know. You distress me very much. I was not thinking of anything
like that. Why should I think of anything so immaterial. She came--I saw
her smiling, beaming with joy, a picture of lovely youth--then her arms
went suddenly up and she fell--backward--the arrow showing in her breast.
If I told the story a hundred times, I could not tell it differently."

"We do not wish you to, Mr. Travis. Only there must be somewhere in your
mind a recollection of the angle which her body presented to the railing
as she came forward."

The unhappy man shook his head, at which token of helplessness Mr. Gryce
beckoned to Sweetwater and whispered a few words in his ear. The man
nodded and withdrew, going the length of the gallery, where he
disappeared among the arches, to reappear shortly after in the gallery
opposite. When he reached Section II, Mr. Gryce again addressed the
witness, who, to his surprise and to that of the Coroner as well, had
become reabsorbed in his own thoughts to the entire disregard of what
this movement might portend. It took a sharp word to rouse him.

"I am going to ask you to watch the young man who has just shown himself
on the other side, and tell us to what extent his movements agree with
those made by the young lady prior to her collapse and fall to the
floor."

For an instant indignation robbed the stranger of all utterance. Then he
burst forth:

"You would make a farce of what is so sad and dreadful, and she scarcely
cold! It is dishonoring to the young lady. I cannot look at that young
man--that hideous young man--and think of her and of how she looked and
walked the instant before her death."

The two officials smiled; they could not help it. Sweetwater was
certainly no beauty, and to associate him in any kind of physical
comparison with the dead girl was certainly incongruous. Yet they both
felt that the point just advanced by them should be settled and settled
now while the requisit