ed to reality. Heathcote's power, whatever it was, and
angry as it made him, was nevertheless a fact, and Dexter never
contradicted facts. With his accurate memory, he now went back and took
up Anne's last answer. "You say I believe it. It is true," he said,
turning toward her (he had been sitting with his eyes cast down during
this whirl of feeling); "but my belief is not founded upon prejudice, as
you seem to think. It rests upon the evidence. Let us go over the
evidence together: women are sometimes intuitively right, even against
reason."

"I can not go over it."

But he persisted. "It would be better," he said, determined to draw the
whole truth from her, if not in one way, then in another. For he
realized how important it was that she should have an adviser.

She looked up and met his eyes; they were kind but unyielding. "Very
well," she said, making an effort to do even this. She leaned back in
her chair and folded her hands: people could endure, then, more than
they knew.

Dexter, not giving her a moment's delay, began immediately: his object
was to rouse her and draw her out. "We will take at first simply the
testimony," he said. "I have the main points here in my note-book. We
will even suppose that we do not know the persons concerned, but think
of them as strangers." He went over the evidence clearly and briefly.
Then the theories. "Note," he said, "the difference. On one side we have
a series of facts, testified to by a number of persons. On the other, a
series of possibilities, testified to by no one save the prisoner
himself. The defense is a theory built to fit the case, without one
proof, no matter how small, as a foundation."

Anne had not stirred. Her eyes were turned away, gazing into the
darkness of the garden. Dexter closed his note-book, and returned it to
his pocket.

"They have advanced no further in the real trial," he said; "but you and
I will now drop our role of strangers, and go on. We know him; we knew
her. Can we think of any cause which would account for such an act? Was
there any reason why Ward Heathcote would have been relieved by the
death of his wife?"

Anne remained silent.

"The common idea that he wished to have sole control of her wealth will
hardly, I think, be received by those who have personally known him,"
continued Dexter. "He never cared for money. He was, in my opinion,
ostentatiously indifferent to it." Here he paused to control the tone of
his voice, which w