."

"So you say."

"Unharnessed the horse, drew up the cutter, locked the stable-door, and,
entering the house, hung up the key where it belonged."

No answer this time.

"Mr. Cumberland, you admitted in your direct examination that you took
with you out of the clubhouse only one bottle of the especial brand you
favoured, although you carried up two into the kitchen?"

"No, I said that I only had one when I got to Cuthbert Road. I don't
remember anything about the other."

"But you know where the other--or rather remnants of the other,
was found?"

"In my own stable, taken there by my man Zadok Brown, who says he picked
it out of one of our waste barrels."

"This is the part of bottle referred to. Do you recognise the label still
adhering to it as similar to the one to be found on the bottle you
emptied in Cuthbert Road?"

"It is like that one."

"Had you carried that other bottle off, and had it been broken as this
has been broken would it not have presented an exactly similar
appearance to this?"

"Possibly."

"Only possibly?"

"It would have looked the same. I cannot deny it. What's the use
fooling?"

"Mr. Cumberland, the only two bottles known to contain this especial
brand of wine were in the clubhouse at ten o'clock that night. How came
one of them to get into the barrel outside your stable before your return
the next day?"

"I cannot say."

"This barrel stood where?"

"In the passage behind the stable."

"The passage you pass through on your way to the door leading into your
neighbour's grounds?"

"Yes."

The dreaded moment had come. This "Yes" had no sooner left Arthur's lips
than I saw Ella throw out her innocent arms, and leap impetuously to her
feet, with a loud "No, no, I can tell--"

She did not say what, for at the hubbub roused by this outbreak in open
court, she fainted dead away and was carried out in her dismayed
father's arms.

This necessarily caused a break in the proceedings. Mr. Fox suspended his
cross-examination and in a few minutes more, the judge adjourned the
court. As the prisoner rose and turned to pass out, I cast him a hurried
glance to see what effect had been made upon him by this ingenuous
outburst from one he had possibly just a little depreciated. A great one,
evidently. His features were transformed, and he seemed almost as
oblivious of the countless eyes upon him as she had been when she rose to
testify for him in her self-forgetful enthusiasm. As I