-handed man could
have committed the crime, for only a left-handed man standing close
against the left side of a room above one sitting at a desk against
that wall could have struck straight down into the left shoulder of the
murdered man. A right-handed assassin would have struck straight down
into the right shoulder, he would not have risked a doubtful blow,
delivered awkwardly across his body, into the left shoulder of his
victim.

The girl indicated Thompson with her hand. "He did it; he's left-handed.
I found out by dropping my glove."

Panic enveloped the cornered man. He began to shake as with an ague.
Sweat like a thin oil spread over his debauched face and the folds of
his obese neck. With his fatal left hand he began to finger the lapel
of his coat where the faded rosebud hung pinned into the buttonhole. And
the girl's voice broke the profound silence of the court-room.

"He has the money, too," she said. "I felt a bulky packet when I gave
him the flower out of my bouquet last night."

The big, thin-haired lawyer, leaving the courtroom after his withdrawal
from the case, stopped at a window arrested by the amazing scene: The
police taking the stolen money out of Thompson's pocket; the woman in
the girl's arms, and the transfigured prisoner standing up as in the
presence of a heavenly angel. This before him... and the splendid motor
below under the sweep of the window, waiting before the courthouse door,
brought back the memory of his biting, sarcastic words:

"... or Cinderella in a pumpkin coach!"

And there occurred to him a doubt of the exclusive dominance of life by
the gods he served.

XIV. The Yellow Flower

The girl sat in a great chair before the fire, huddled, staring into the
glow of the smoldering logs.

Her dark hair clouded her face. The evening gown was twisted and
crumpled about her. There was no ornament on her; her arms, her
shoulders, the exquisite column of her throat were bare.

She sat with her eyes wide, unmoving, in a profound reflection.

The library was softly lighted; richly furnished, a little beyond
the permission of good taste. On a table at the girl's elbow were two
objects; a ruby necklace, and a dried flower. The flower, fragile with
age, seemed a sort of scrub poppy of a delicate yellow; the flower of
some dwarfed bush, prickly like a cactus.

The necklace made a great heap of jewels on the buhl top of the table,
above the intricate arabesque of silver an