this younger sister even enjoined secrecy upon you in asking you
to harness the horse?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yet you heard the two together in this remote building without
surprise?"

"No, I must have felt surprise, but I didn't stop to analyse my feelings.
Afterward, I turned it over in my mind and tried to make something out of
the whole thing. But that was when I was far out on the links."

A losing game thus far. This the district attorney seemed to feel; but he
was not an ungenerous man though cursed (perhaps, I should say blessed,
considering the position he held) by a tenacity which never let him lose
his hold until the jury gave their verdict.

"You have a right to explain yourself fully," said he, after a momentary
struggle in which his generosity triumphed over his pride. "When you did
think of your sisters, what explanation did you give yourself of the
facts we have just been considering?"

"I could not imagine the truth, so I just satisfied myself that Adelaide
had discovered Carmel's intentions to ride into town and had insisted on
accompanying her. They were having it out, I thought, in the presence of
the man who had made all this trouble between them."

"And you left them to the task?"

"Yes, sir, but not without a struggle. I was minded several times to
return. This I have testified to before."

"Did this struggle consume forty minutes?"

"It must have and more, if I entered the hold in Cuthbert Road at the
hour they state."

Mr. Fox gave up the game, and I looked to be the next person called. But
it was not a part of Mr. Moffat's plan to weaken the effect of Carmel's
testimony by offering any weak corroboration of facts which nobody showed
the least inclination to dispute. Satisfied with having given the jury an
opportunity to contrast his client's present cheerfulness and manly
aspect with the sullenness he had maintained while in doubt of Carmel's
real connection with this crime, Mr. Moffat rested his case.

There was no testimony offered in rebuttal and the court took a recess.

When it reassembled I cast another anxious glance around. Still no
Carmel, nor any signs of Sweetwater. I could understand her absence, but
not his, and it was in a confusion of feeling which was fast getting the
upper hand of me, that I turned my attention to Mr. Moffat and the plea
he was about to make for his youthful client.

I do not wish to obtrude myself too much into this trial of another man
for the murde