t the question: "When, after telephoning, you returned to
the room where your sister lay, you glanced at the lounge?"

"Yes, I could not help it."

"Was it in the same condition as when you left--the pillows, I mean?"

"I--I think so. I cannot say; I only half looked; I was terrified by it."

"Can you say they had not been disturbed?"

"No. I can say nothing. But what does--"

"Only the answer, Miss Cumberland. Can you tell us how those pillows were
arranged?"

"I'm afraid not. I threw them down quickly, madly, just as I collected
them. I only know that I put the window cushion down first. The rest fell
anyhow; but they quite covered her--quite."

"Hands and face?"

"Her whole body."

"And did they cover her quite when you came back?"

"They must have--Wait--wait! I know I have no right to say that, but I
cannot swear that I saw any change."

"Can you swear that there was no change--that the pillows and the window
cushion lay just as they did when you left the room?"

She did not answer. Horror seemed to have seized hold of her. Her eyes,
fixed on the attorney's face, wavered and, had they followed their
natural impulse, would have turned towards her brother, but her
fear--possibly her love--was her counsellor and she brought them back to
Mr. Fox. Resolutely, but with a shuddering insight of the importance of
her reply, she answered with that one weighty monosyllable which can
crush so many hopes, and even wreck a life:

"No."

At the next moment she was in Dr. Carpenter's arms. Her strength had
given way for the time, and the court was hastily adjourned, to give her
opportunity for rest and recuperation.

XXXI

"WERE HER HANDS CROSSED THEN?"

Threescore and ten I can remember well:
Within the volume of which time, I have seen
Hours dreadful, and things strange; but this sore night
Hath trifled former knowledge.

_Macbeth_.

I shall say nothing about myself at this juncture. That will come later.
I have something of quite different purport to relate.

When I left the court-room with the other witnesses, I noticed a man
standing near the district attorney. He was a very plain man--with no
especial claims to attention, that I could see, yet I looked at him
longer than I did at any one else, and turned and looked at him again as
I passed through the doorway.

Afterward I heard that he was Sweetwater, the detective from New York who
had had so much to do in unearthing the testimony agai