question the woman minutely about the details of the room and the
position of the furniture where the tragedy had occurred, the desk,
the attitude of the dead man, the location of the wound, and exact
distances. And as the woman repeated the evidence of the police officers
and the experts, the girl filled out her drawing with nice mathematical
exactness like one accustomed to such a labor.

This was the whole story, and now the woman added the final interview
with the attorney. She made a sort of hopeless gesture.

"Nobody believes us," she said. "My husband did not kill him. He was at
home with me. He knew nothing about it until he found his master dead
at the table in the morning. But there is only our word against all the
lawyers and detectives and experts that Mr. Thompson has brought against
us."

"Who is Mr. Thompson?" said the girl. She was deep in a study of her
little drawing.

"He's Mr. Marsh's nephew, Mr. Percy Thompson."

The girl, absorbed in the study of her drawing, now put an unexpected
question.

"Has your husband lost an arm?"

"No," she said, "he never had any sort of accident."

A great light came into the girl's face. "Then I believe you," she said.
"I believe every word.... I think your husband is innocent."

The girl was aglow with an enthusiastic purpose. It was all there in her
fine, expressive face.

"Now," she said, "tell me about this nephew, this Mr. Percy Thompson.
Could we by any chance see him?"

"It won't do any good to see him," replied the woman. "He is determined
to convict my husband. Nothing can change him."

The girl went on without paying any attention to the comment. "Where
does he live--you must have heard?"

"He lives at the Markheim Hotel," she said.

"The Markheim Hotel," repeated the girl. "Where is it?"

The woman gave the street and number. The girl rose. "That's on my way;
we'll stop."

The two-went out of the cafe to the motor. The whole thing, incredible
at any other hour, seemed to the woman like events happening in a dream
or in some topsy-turvy country which she had mysteriously entered.

She sat back in the tonneau of the motor, huddled into the corner, a rug
around her shoulders. The flashing lights seemed those of some distant,
unknown city, as though she were transported into the scene of an
Arabian tale.

The motor stopped before a little shabby hotel in a neighboring
cross-street, and the footman, in livery beside the driver, got down at