body, to the deliciousness of her caresses--it
was a letter that could only have been written by a man in a transport of
passion. Kittredge grew white as he listened, and Mrs. Wilmott burned with
shame.

"Is there any doubt about it?" pursued the judge pitilessly. "And I have
only read two bits from two letters. There are many others. Now I want the
truth about this business. Come, the quickest way will be the easiest."

He took out his watch and laid it on the desk before him. "Madam, I will
give you five minutes. Unless you admit within that time what is perfectly
evident, namely, that you were this man's mistress, I shall continue the
reading of these letters _before your husband_."

"You're taking a cowardly advantage of a woman!" she burst out.

"No," answered Hauteville sternly. "I am investigating a cowardly murder."
He glanced at his watch. "Four minutes!"

Then to Kittredge: "And unless _you_ admit this thing, I shall summon the
girl from Notre-Dame and let _her_ say what she thinks of this
correspondence."

Lloyd staggered under the blow. He was fortified against everything but
this; he would endure prison, pain, humiliation, but he could not bear the
thought that this fine girl, his Alice, who had taught him what love really
was, this fond creature who trusted him, should be forced to hear that
shameful reading.

"You wouldn't do that?" he pleaded. "I don't ask you to spare me--I've been
no saint, God knows, and I'll take my medicine, but you can't drag an
innocent girl into this thing just because you have the power."

"Were you this woman's lover?" repeated the judge, and again he looked at
his watch. "Three minutes!"

Kittredge was in torture. Once his eyes turned to Mrs. Wilmott in a message
of unspeakable bitterness. "You're a judge," he said in a strained, tense
voice, "and I'm a prisoner; you have all the power and I have none, but
there's something back of that, something we both have, I mean a common
manhood, and you know, if you have any sense of honor, that _no man_ has a
right to ask another man that question."

"The point is well taken," approved Maitre Pleindeaux.

"Two minutes!" said Hauteville coldly. Then he turned to Mrs. Wilmott.
"Your husband is now at his club, one of our men is there also, awaiting my
orders. He will get them by telephone, and will bring your husband here in
a swift automobile. _You have one minute left!_"

Then there was silence in that dingy chamber, heavy