This morning, she informed me, had been awfully stupid,--just
cross-examining, and interrupting; but finally they did call some one
new--a Mexican woman. And she testified that for two years Carlotta
Valencia's friends had known her as Mrs. Rood. "And then mother
wouldn't let me stay any longer," Hallie lamented, "because she said
the woman wasn't a proper person. But I wanted awfully to hear what
else she said!"

Here Abby came in, and remarked that if we were going to talk all day
we would better go somewhere else and give Lee a chance to clear off
the table.

The garden has lovely places in which to sit, so we went out there and
took the rustic bench in the shade of the cypress hedge.

"But what does Johnny Montgomery's lawyer say?" I asked, for that was
really the point of interest for me.

"Why, he claims that Rood committed suicide, because he was despondent
over something--business I guess; and of course they did find a
discharged revolver in the bar. The weak spot in that, father says, is
that the bullet Rood was shot with is much too small for that revolver."

I knew there was a far weaker point in the defense than that, and I
wondered, in the face of it, how I was ever going to drag my unwilling
spirit up into the witness-box. The summons might come at any
moment,--might come now, while we sat talking with our feet in the sun
and the cypress shadow cool upon our foreheads.

At four o'clock father came stepping out of the conservatory, calling
out, "What young person will give a tired man a cup of tea?" Then,
noticing my questioning look, "No summons for us to-day," he said; so I
ran in to fetch the tea-table.

Tea in the garden was a rare event. The few warm spring days gave the
opportunity, and nothing was prettier than the scarlet lacquer tray
with the Nankin cups set out under the heliotrope vines. I asked
whether this was any special celebration, and father said yes; it was a
farewell complimentary to him. He had to go out of town to-night. He
hated to be away over Sunday, he explained, but there was business at
Alma which he must look into sometime during the next five days; and
week days for the present would be out of the question--by which I knew
he meant he must stay on account of the trial. Then he stopped being
sensible, and began teasing Hallie about her latest beau. He loves to
do that, because she takes it all so seriously, and never sees that he
is joking her. Just as she wa