The kindness of this language was more than matched by the kindness of
his manner. I spoke to him freely and fully--I told him my strange story
without the slightest reserve.

He showed the varying impressions that I produced on his mind without
the slightest concealment. My separation from Eustace distressed him.
My resolution to dispute the Scotch Verdict, and my unjust suspicions
of Mrs. Beauly, first amused, then surprised him. It was not, however,
until I had described my extraordinary interview with Miserrimus Dexter,
and my hardly less remarkable conversation with Lady Clarinda, that I
produced my greatest effect on the lawyer's mind. I saw him change color
for the first time. He started, and muttered to himself, as if he
had completely forgotten me. "Good God!" I heard him say--"can it be
possible? Does the truth lie _that_ way after all?"

I took the liberty of interrupting him. I had no idea of allowing him to
keep his thoughts to himself.

"I seem to have surprised you?" I said.

He started at the sound of my voice.

"I beg ten thousand pardons!" he exclaimed. "You have not only
surprised me--you have opened an entirely new view to my mind. I see
a possibility, a really startling possibility, in connection with the
poisoning at Gleninch, which never occurred to me until the present
moment. This is a nice state of things," he added, falling back again
into his ordinary humor. "Here is the client leading the lawyer. My dear
Mrs. Eustace, which is it--do you want my advice? or do I want yours?"

"May I hear the new idea?" I asked.

"Not just yet, if you will excuse me," he answered. "Make allowances for
my professional caution. I don't want to be professional with you--my
great anxiety is to avoid it. But the lawyer gets the better of the
man, and refuses to be suppressed. I really hesitate to realize what
is passing in my own mind without some further inquiry. Do me a great
favor. Let us go over a part of the ground again, and let me ask you
some questions as we proceed. Do you feel any objection to obliging me
in this matter?"

"Certainly not, Mr. Playmore. How far shall we go back?"

"To your visit to Dexter with your mother-in-law. When you first asked
him if he had any ideas of his own on the subject of Mrs. Eustace
Macallan's death, did I understand you to say that he looked at you
suspiciously?"

"Very suspiciously."

"And his face cleared up again when you told him that your question was
o