he
embarrassment of the one and the decided discomfiture of the other.

Mr. Ferris at once resumed:

"In the weeks that have elapsed since the commission of this crime, it
has been my lot to subject you to much mental misery, Miss Dare.
Provided by yourself with a possible clue to the murder, I have probed
the matter with an unsparing hand. Heedless of the pain I was
inflicting, or the desperation to which I was driving you, I asked you
questions and pressed you for facts as long as there seemed questions to
ask or facts to be gained. My duty and the claims of my position
demanded this, and for it I can make no excuse, notwithstanding the
unhappy results that have ensued. But, Miss Dare, whatever anxiety I may
have shown in procuring the conviction of a man I believed to be a
criminal, I have never wished to win my case at the expense of justice
and right; and had I been told before you came to the stand that you had
been made the victim of a deception calculated to influence your
judgment, I should have hastened to set you right with the same anxiety
as I do now."

"Sir--sir----" she began.

But Mr. Ferris would not listen.

"Miss Dare," he proceeded with all the gravity of conviction, "you have
uttered a deliberate perjury in the court-room to-day. You said that you
alone were responsible for the murder of Mrs. Clemmens, whereas you not
only did not commit the crime yourself but were not even an accessory to
it. Wait!" he commanded, as she flashed upon him a look full of denial,
"I would rather you did not speak. The motive for this calumny you
uttered upon yourself lies in a fact which may be modified by what I
have to reveal. Hear me, then, before you stain yourself still further
by a falsehood you will not only be unable to maintain, but which you
may no longer see reason for insisting upon. Hickory, turn around so
Miss Dare can see your face. Miss Dare, when you saw fit to call upon
this man to upbear you in the extraordinary statements you made to-day,
did you realize that in doing this you appealed to the one person best
qualified to prove the falsehood of what you had said? I see you did
not; yet it is so. He if no other can testify that a few weeks ago, no
idea of taking this crime upon your own shoulders had ever crossed your
mind; that, on the contrary, your whole heart was filled with sorrow for
the supposed guilt of another, and plans for inducing that other to make
a confession of his guilt before t