time," came from lips so stiff that the words
were with difficulty articulated. "What is its purpose?" he asked after
a short pause.

"I hardly think it necessary to tell you," came in chilling response from
the now thoroughly disenchanted official. "It looks like a loop, and
notwithstanding your assertion that you see it now for the first time,
we have ample evidence that it was once attached to the coat you wore on
that fatal day and later carefully severed from it and dropped on the
museum floor."

The District Attorney waited, they all waited with eyes on the subject of
this attack, for some token of shame or indignation at this scarcely
veiled insinuation. But beyond a certain stillness of expression, still
further masking a countenance naturally cold and irresponsive, no hint
was given that any effect had been produced upon him by these words.
The coal before it falls apart into ash holds itself intact though its
heart of flame has departed; so he--or such was Mr. Gryce's thought as he
waited for the District Attorney's next move.

It was of a sort which recalls that soul-harrowing legend of the man hung
up in an iron cage above a yawning precipice, from under whose madly
shifting feet one plank after another is withdrawn from the cage's
bottom, till no spot is left for him to stand on; and he falls.

"I hear that you are an expert with the bow and arrow, Mr. Roberts, or
rather were at an earlier stage of your career. You have even taken a
prize for the same from an Alpine Club."

Ah! that told. It was such an unexpected blow; and it showed so much
knowledge. But the man who thus beheld his own youth brought up in
accusation against him quickly recovered; and with an entire change of
demeanor, faced them all and spoke up at last quickly and defiantly:

"Gentlemen, I have shown patience up till now, because I saw that you had
something on your minds which it might be better for you and possibly for
me to be rid of. This affair of Miss Willett's death is, as all must
acknowledge, baffling enough to strain even to the point of folly any
effort made to explain it. I had sympathy with your difficulties, and
have still enough of that sympathy left, not to express too much
indignation at what you are pleased to call your suspicions. I will
merely halt for the moment your attempts in my direction, by asking,
what have you or anybody else ever seen in me to think I would practise
my old-time skill on a young and bea