"That is not so," she exclaimed. "Any modern alienist will tell you
that. Sometimes the chief mark of insanity may be knowing the nature
and consequences, craftily avoiding detection with an almost superhuman
cunning. No; the test is whether knowing the nature and consequences, a
person suffers under such a defect of will that in spite of everything,
in the face of everything, that person cannot control that will."

As she spoke, she had quickly detached the little instrument and had
placed it on Annie Grayson's arm. If it had been a Bertillon camera, or
even a finger-print outfit, Annie Grayson would probably have fought
like a tigress. But this thing was a new one. She had a peculiar spirit
of bravado.

"Such terms as kleptomania," went on Constance, "are often regarded as
excuses framed up by the experts to cover up plain ordinary stealing.
But did you wiseacres of crime ever stop to think that perhaps they do
actually exist?

"There are many things that distinguish such a woman as I have
described to you from a common thief. There is the insane desire to
steal--merely for stealing's sake--a morbid craving. Of course in a
sense it is stealing. But it is persistent, incorrigible, irrational,
motiveless, useless.

"Stop and think about it a moment," she concluded, lowering her voice
and taking advantage of the very novelty of the situation she had
created. "Such diseases are the product of civilization, of
sensationalism. Naturally enough, then, woman, with her delicately
balanced nervous organization, is the first and chief offender--if you
insist on calling such a person an offender under your antiquated
methods of dealing with such cases."

She had paused.

"What did you say you called this thing?" asked Drummond as he tapped
the arrangement on Annie Grayson's arm.

He was evidently not much impressed by it, yet somehow instinctively
regarded it with somewhat of the feelings of an elephant toward a mouse.

"That?" answered Constance, taking it off Annie Grayson's wrist before
she could do anything with it. "Why, I don't know that I said anything
about it. It is really a sphygmomanometer--the little expert witness
that never lies--one of the instruments the insurance companies use now
to register blood pressure and discover certain diseases. It occurred
to me that it might be put to other and equally practical uses. For no
one can conceal the emotions from this instrument, not even a person of
cast-iron