ore? How
account for what must be ever unaccountable to him, to the world, to my
own self, if in obedience to the demands of the situation I subdued my
own memory and blotted out all I had seen but that which it was safe to
confess to?

"There is no more to say," I murmured. "The horror of that moment made a
chaos in my mind. I looked at the dead body of her who lay there as I
have looked at everything since; as I looked at the police when they
came--as I look at you now. But I know nothing. It is all a
phantasmagoria to me--with no more meaning than a nightmare. She is
dead--I know that--but beyond that, all is doubt--confusion--what the
world and all its passing show is to a blind man. I can neither
understand nor explain."

VI

COMMENTS AND REFLECTIONS

There is no agony and no solace left;
Earth can console, Heaven can torment, no more

_Prometheus Unbound_

The coroner's intent look which had more or less sustained me through
this ordeal, remained fixed upon my face as though he were still anxious
to see me exonerate myself. How much did he know? That was the question.
_How much did he know_?

Having no means of telling, I was forced to keep silent. I had revealed
all I dared to. As I came to this conclusion, his eyes fell and I knew
that the favorable minute had passed.

The question he now asked proved it.

"You say that you were not blind to surrounding objects, even if they
conveyed but little meaning to you. You must have seen, then, that the
room where Miss Cumberland lay contained two small cordial glasses, both
still moist with some liqueur."

"I noticed that, yes."

"Some one must have drunk with her?"

"I cannot contradict you."

"Was Miss Cumberland fond of that sort of thing?"

"She detested liquor of all kinds. She never drank I never saw a woman
so averse to wine." I spoke before I thought. I might better have been
less emphatic, but the mystery of those glasses had affected me from the
first. Neither she nor Carmel ever allowed themselves so much as a social
glass, yet those glasses had been drained. "Perhaps the cold--"

"There was a third glass. We found it in the adjoining closet. It had not
been used. That third glass has a meaning if only we could find it out."

A possibility which had risen in my mind faded at these words.

"Three glasses," I dully repeated.

"And a small flask of cordial. The latter seems pure enough."

"I cannot understand it." The phrase had