er feeling glad that the lamps gave so poor a
light, she looked so distressed."

"Physically, do you mean, or mentally?"

Mr. Hammersmith asked this question. It seemed to rouse some new train
of thought in the girl's mind. For a minute she looked intently at the
speaker, then she replied in a disturbed tone:

"Both. I wonder----" Here her thought wavered and she ceased.

"Go on," ordered the coroner impatiently. "Tell your story. It
contradicts that of the landlord in almost every point, but we've
promised to hear it out, and we will."

Rousing, she hastened to obey him.

"Mr. Quimby told the truth when he said that he asked me if I would have
supper, also when he repeated what I said about a gentleman, but not
when he declared that I wished to be told if my mother should come and
ask for me. My mother was at my side all the time we stood there
talking, and I did not need to make any requests concerning her. When
we went to our rooms a woman accompanied us. He says she is his wife. I
should like to see that woman."

"I am here, miss," spoke up a voice from a murky corner no one had
thought of looking in till now.

Miss Demarest at once rose, waiting for the woman to come forward. This
she did with a quick, natural step which insensibly prepared the mind
for the brisk, assertive woman who now presented herself. Mr.
Hammersmith, at sight of her open, not unpleasing face, understood for
the first time the decided attitude of the coroner. If this woman
corroborated her husband's account, the poor young girl, with her
incongruous beauty and emotional temperament, would not have much show.
He looked to see her quailing now. But instead of that she stood firm,
determined, and feverishly beautiful.

"Let her tell you what took place upstairs," she cried. "She showed us
the rooms and carried water afterward to the one my mother occupied."

"I am sorry to contradict the young lady," came in even tones from the
unembarrassed, motherly-looking woman thus appealed to. "She thinks that
her mother was with her and that I conducted this mother to another room
after showing her to her own. I don't doubt in the least that she has
worked herself up to the point of absolutely believing this. But the
facts are these: She came alone and went to her room unattended by any
one but myself. And what is more, she seemed entirely composed at the
time, and I never thought of suspecting the least thing wrong. Yet her
mother lay all that