hady reputation--"

"I've explained to you how that happened. We didn't stay there. We came
right out."

"Let me go on, please. And you let him buy you wine there?"

"I've told you about that part, too--how the bottles and the glasses
were already on the table when we sat down."

"I'm merely going by what the photographs tell, Mrs. Propbridge. I'm
merely saying to you what a smart divorce lawyer would say to you if
ever he got you on the witness stand; only he'd be trying to convict you
by your own words and I'm trying to give you every chance to clear
yourself. And then after that you go and sit with him--this perfect
stranger--in a lonely place alongside a deserted bath house and nobody
else in sight?"

"There were people bathing right in front of us all the time."

"Were there? Well, take a look at Photograph Number Five and see if it
shows any bathers in sight. And he slips his arm around you and draws
you to him?"

"I explained to you how that happened," protested the badgered,
desperate woman. "No matter what the circumstances seem to be, I did
nothing wrong, I tell you."

"All right, just as you say. Remember, I'm taking your side of it; I'm
trying to be your friend. But here's the important thing for you to
consider: With those pictures laid before them would any jury on earth
believe your side of it? Would they believe you had no hand in sending
your husband that faked-up telegram? Would they believe it wasn't a
trick to get him away so you could keep an appointment with this man?
Would any judge believe you? Would your friends believe you? Or would
they all say that they never heard such a transparent cock-and-bull
story in their lives?"

"Oh, oh!" she cried chokingly, and put her face in her hands. Then she
threw up her head and stared at him out of her miserable eyes. "Where
did those pictures come from? You say you believe in me, that you are
willing to help me. Then tell me where they came from and who took them?
And how did you manage to get hold of them?"

His baitings had carried her exactly to the desired place--the turning
point, they call it in the vernacular of the confidence sharp. The rest
should be easy.

"Mrs. Propbridge," he said, "you've been pretty frank with me. I'll be
equally frank with you. Those pictures were brought to our office by the
man who took them. I have his name and address, but am not at liberty to
tell them to anyone. I don't know what his motives were in taking