ound
officers sprang to their feet. Spectators climbed on their chairs for a
better view.

"Sit down! Sit down!" roared the judge advocate.

A figure tottered out into the aisle.

"Air! Air! I must have air!" The judge advocate stepped aside. "For
God's sake, let me go!"

"That is just what we cannot do. Guard, here is your prisoner," and
Warren caught Mrs. Bennett as she fell.

CHAPTER XXVI

BY A HAIR'S BREADTH

Again and again Colonel Andrews demanded order in the court-room, but
the spectators were utterly demoralized and refused to be quiet. It was
only after Mrs. Bennett had been carried unconscious into another room
that the confusion somewhat abated. Nancy, trembling in every limb, in
the reaction which followed her terror and shock, collapsed in her
chair, incapable of speech. Mrs. Arnold, whose complexion had turned
pasty from her emotions, clung frantically to Mrs. Warren and begged
tearfully to be taken home.

Colonel Andrews, purple in the face with his exertions, bellowed in a
voice at last heard above the racket: "This unseemly behavior must
cease! Major Lane, call the guard and clear the room!"

Silence quickly followed the order, and Warren turned and addressed the
excited court:

"I ask your indulgence for precipitating such a scene. I returned to
this room intending to ask a stay of proceedings so that I could have
time to gather evidence against Mrs. Bennett; but, on hearing the judge
advocate's argument against postponement, I saw my opportunity to force
a confession from the guilty woman by giving details of Captain Lloyd's
murder which would induce her to think there had been an eye-witness to
her crime.

"Sitting there, confident that another was practically convicted for
Captain Lloyd's murder, the shock of my unexpected words affected her
as I hoped they would, and she betrayed herself."

"Is that the only evidence you can offer to prove Mrs. Bennett's
guilt?" demanded the judge advocate, harshly.

"My next witness is Miss Mary Phelps, a nurse of the United States
Sanitary Commission," was Warren's noncommittal reply.

After the usual preliminaries Miss Phelps told how she found the
hypodermic syringe and why she gave it to Doctor Ward. She was then
excused, and her place taken by Doctor Ward, who in a few concise words
described how he discovered that the syringe was not his, and that it
contained a solution which, on examination, proved to be a form of
curari. He pr