ot that others might be more interested in making
out what was going on in her mind at this critical moment than in
watching the speaker or noting the effect of his words upon the court.
In fact, she was too eager herself to hear what he had to say to
remember her _role_, I fancy."

"But, I don't see----" began Byrd.

"Wait," interrupted the other. "You believe Miss Dare loves Craik
Mansell?"

"Most certainly," was the gloomy response.

"Very well, then. If she had known what the defence was going to be she
would have been acutely alive to the effect it was going to have upon
the jury. That would have been her first thought and her only thought
all the time Mr. Orcutt was speaking, and she would have sat with her
eyes fixed upon the men upon whose acceptance or non-acceptance of the
truth of this argument her lover's life ultimately depended. But no; her
gaze, like yours, remained fixed upon Mr. Orcutt, and she scarcely
breathed or stirred till he had fully revealed what his argument was
going to be. Then----"

"Well, then?"

"Instead of flashing with the joy of relief which any devoted woman
would experience who sees in this argument a proof of her lover's
innocence, she merely dropped her eyes and resumed her old mask of
impassiveness."

"From all of which you gather----"

"That her feelings were not those of relief, but doubt. In other words,
that the knowledge she possesses is of a character which laughs to scorn
any such subterfuge of defence as Orcutt advances."

"Hickory," ventured Byrd, after a long silence, "it is time we
understood each other. What is your secret thought in relation to Miss
Dare?"

"My secret thought? Well," drawled the other, looking away, "I think
she knows more about this crime than she has yet chosen to reveal."

"More than she evinced to-day in her testimony?"

"Yes."

"I should like to know why you think so. What special reasons have you
for drawing any such conclusions?"

"Well, one reason is, that she was no more shaken by the plausible
argument advanced by Mr. Orcutt. If her knowledge of the crime was
limited to what she acknowledged in her testimony, and her conclusions
as to Mansell's guilt were really founded upon such facts as she gave us
in court to-day, why didn't she grasp at the possibility of her lover's
innocence which was held out to her by his counsel? No facts that she
had testified to, not even the fact of his ring having been found on the
scene of mu