person in the room--whoever it was--when
you were caught by the throat?"

"No. I only felt the hand. It was quite dark, and I could see nothing."

"You are quite sure this happened to you? You are sure it is not
imagination?"

"Oh, no, it was too terribly real."

"Did you observe anything about the revolver when you picked it up?"
said Merrington after a pause.

"No, except that it was bright and shining."

"Nor when you placed it in your dress to carry it downstairs?"

"I do not know anything about fire-arms. When I got downstairs I locked
it away as quickly as I could."

"So you picked up a revolver which had just been fired, without noticing
whether the barrel was hot or cold. Is that what you wish me to
believe?"

"I picked it up by the handle. I seem to remember now that it was warm,
but I cannot be sure. I hardly knew what I was doing at the time."

Her confusion was so evident that Merrington did not think it worth
while to pursue the point.

"If your story is true, why have you not told it before?" he said. "If
you are merely the unfortunate victim of circumstances that you claim to
be, why did you not announce your innocence when I was questioning you
at the moat-house on the day after the murder?"

The girl hesitated perceptibly before answering the question.

"Perhaps I might have done so but for your recognition of my mother,"
she said at length, in a low tone.

"I fail to see how that affected your own position."

"It seemed to me then that it did," she responded in a firmer tone. "I
knew that my story sounded improbable, but after learning what you knew
about my mother it seemed to me that you would be even less likely to
believe me, so I thought the best thing I could do was to keep silence,
and trust to the truth coming to light in some other way."

The recollection of the incidents of his visit to the moat-house came
thronging into Merrington's mind at this reply.

"Did you see your mother when you got downstairs on the night of the
murder?" he asked.

"Not at first. She came in afterwards."

"How long afterwards?"

The girl, struck by a new note in his voice, looked at him with horror
in her widened eyes.

"I understand what you mean," she replied, "but you are wrong--quite
wrong. My mother knows nothing whatever about it. She did not even know
that I had been upstairs. She is as innocent as I am."

"That does not carry us very far," said Merrington coldly, rising to his
f