im, if
he would consent to accept a deliverance founded upon utterances so
manifestly frenzied and devoid of truth. I therefore repeat the
objection I have before urged. I ask your Honor now to strike out all
this testimony as irrelevant in rebuttal, and I beg our learned friend
to close an examination as unprofitable to his own cause as to mine."

"I agree with my friend," returned Mr. Ferris, "that the moment is one
unfit for controversy. If it please the Court, therefore, I will
withdraw the witness, though by so doing I am forced to yield all hope
of eliciting the important fact I had relied upon to rebut the defence."

And obedient to the bow of acquiescence he received from the Judge, the
District Attorney turned to Miss Dare and considerately requested her to
leave the stand.

But she, roused by the sound of her name perhaps, looked up, and meeting
the eye of the Judge, said:

"Pardon me, your Honor, but I do not desire to leave the stand till I
have made clear to all who hear me that it is I, not the prisoner, who
am responsible for Mrs. Clemmens' death. The agony which I have been
forced to undergo in giving testimony against him, has earned me the
right to say the words that prove his innocence and my own guilt."

"But," said the Judge, "we do not consider you in any condition to give
testimony in court to-day, even against yourself. If what you say is
true, you shall have ample opportunities hereafter to confirm and
establish your statements, for you must know, Miss Dare, that no
confession of this nature will be considered sufficient without
testimony corroborative of its truth."

"But, your Honor," she returned, with a dreadful calmness, "I have
corroborative testimony." And amid the startled looks of all present,
she raised her hand and pointed with steady forefinger at the astounded
and by-no-means gratified Hickory. "Let that man be recalled," she
cried, "and asked to repeat the conversation he had with a young
servant-girl called Roxana, in Professor Darling's observatory some ten
weeks ago."

The suddenness of her action, the calm assurance with which it was made,
together with the intention it evinced of summoning actual evidence to
substantiate her confession, almost took away the breath of the
assembled multitude. Even Mr. Orcutt seemed shaken by it, and stood
looking from the outstretched hand of this woman he so adored, to the
abashed countenance of the rough detective, with a wonder that