Hand and Ring

"I do not understand," she murmured; "what question?"

"Miss Dare, in all you have told the court, in all that you have told me, about this fatal and unhappy affair, you have never informed us how it was you first came to hear of it. You were – "

"I heard it on the street corner," she interrupted, with what seemed to him an almost feverish haste.

"First?"

"Yes, first."

"Miss Dare, had you been in the street long? Were you in it at the time the murder happened, do you think?"

"I in the street?"

"Yes," he repeated, conscious from the sudden strange alteration in her look that he had touched upon a point which, to her, was vital with some undefined interest, possibly that to which the surmises of Hickory had supplied a clue. "Were you in the street, or anywhere out-of-doors at the time the murder occurred? It strikes me that it would be well for me to know."

"Sir," she cried, rising in her sudden indignation, "I thought the time for questions had passed. What means this sudden inquiry into a matter we have all considered exhausted, certainly as far as I am concerned."

"Shall I show you?" he cried, taking her by the hand and leading her toward the mirror near by, under one of those impulses which sometimes effect so much. "Look in there at your own face and you will see why I press this question upon you."

Astonished, if not awed, she followed with her eyes the direction of his pointing finger, and anxiously surveyed her own image in the glass. Then, with a quick movement, her hands went up before her face – which till that moment had kept its counsel so well – and, tottering back against a table, she stood for a moment communing with herself, and possibly summoning up her courage for the conflict she evidently saw before her.

"What is it you wish to know?" she faintly inquired, after a long period of suspense and doubt.

"Where were you when the clock struck twelve on the day Mrs. Clemmens was murdered?"

Instantly dropping her hands, she turned toward him with a sudden lift of her majestic figure that was as imposing as it was unexpected.

"I was at Professor Darling's house," she declared, with great steadiness.

Mr. Ferris had not expected this reply, and looked at her for an instant almost as if he felt inclined to repeat his inquiry.

"Do you doubt my word?" she queried. "Is it possible you question my truth at a time like this?"

"No, Miss Dare," he gravely assured her. "After the great sacrifice you have publicly made in the interests of justice, it would be worse than presumptuous in me to doubt your sincerity now."

She drew a deep breath, and straightened herself still more proudly.

"Then am I to understand you are satisfied with the answer you have received?"

"Yes, if you will also add that you were in the observatory at Professor Darling's house," he responded quickly, convinced there was some mystery here, and seeing but one way to reach it.

"Very well, then, I was," she averred, without hesitation.

"You were!" he echoed, advancing upon her with a slight flush on his middle-aged cheek, that evinced how difficult it was for him to pursue this conversation in face of the haughty and repellant bearing she had assumed. "You will, perhaps, tell me, then, why you did not see and respond to the girl who came into that room at this very time, with a message from a lady who waited below to see you?"

"Ah!" she cried, succumbing with a suppressed moan to the inexorable destiny that pursued her in this man, "you have woven a net for me!"

And she sank again into a chair, where she sat like one stunned, looking at him with a hollow gaze which filled his heart with compassion, but which had no power to shake his purpose as a District Attorney.

"Yes," he acknowledged, after a moment, "I have woven a net for you, but only because I am anxious for the truth, and desirous of furthering the ends of justice. I am confident you know more about this crime than you have ever revealed, Miss Dare; that you are acquainted with some fact that makes you certain Mr. Mansell committed this murder, notwithstanding the defence advanced in his favor. What is this fact? It is my office to inquire. True," he admitted, seeing her draw back with denial written on every line of her white face, "you have a right to refuse to answer me here, but you will have no right to refuse to answer me to-morrow when I put the same question to you in the presence of judge and jury."

"And" – her voice was so husky he could but with difficulty distinguish her words – "do you intend to recall me to the stand to-morrow?"

"I am obliged to, Miss Dare."

"But I thought the time for examination was over; that the witnesses had all testified, and that nothing remained now but for the lawyers to sum up."

"When in a case like this the prisoner offers a defence not anticipated by the prosecution, the latter, of course, has the right to meet such defence with proof in rebuttal."

"Proof in rebuttal? What is that?"

"Evidence to rebut or prove false the matters advanced in support of the defence."

"Ah!"

"I must do it in this case – if I can, of course."

She did not reply.

"And even if the testimony I desire to put in is not rebuttal in its character, no unbiassed judge would deny to counsel the privilege of reopening his case when any new or important fact has come to light."

As if overwhelmed by a prospect she had not anticipated, she hurriedly arose and pointed down the room to a curtained recess.

"Give me five minutes," she cried; "five minutes by myself where no one can look at me, and where I can think undisturbed upon what I had better do."

"Very well," he acquiesced; "you shall have them."

She at once crossed to the small retreat.

"Five minutes," she reiterated huskily, as she lifted the curtains aside; "when the clock strikes nine I will come out."

"You will?" he repeated, doubtfully.

"I will."

The curtains fell behind her, and for five long minutes Mr. Ferris paced the room alone. He was far from easy. All was so quiet behind that curtain, – so preternaturally quiet. But he would not disturb her; no, he had promised, and she should be left to fight her battle alone. When nine o'clock struck, however, he started, and owned to himself some secret dread. Would she come forth or would he have to seek her in her place of seclusion? It seemed he would have to seek her, for the curtains did not stir, and by no sound from within was any token given that she had heard the summons. Yet he hesitated, and as he did so, a thought struck him. Could it be there was any outlet from the refuge she had sought? Had she taken advantage of his consideration to escape him? Moved by the fear, he hastily crossed the room. But before he could lay his hand upon the curtains, they parted, and disclosed the form of Imogene.

"I am coming," she murmured, and stepped forth more like a faintly-breathing image than a living woman.

His first glance at her face convinced him she had taken her resolution. His second, that in taking it she had drifted into a state of feeling different from any he had observed in her before, and of a sort that to him was wholly inexplicable. Her words when she spoke only deepened this impression.

"Mr. Ferris," said she, coming very near to him in evident dread of being overheard, "I have decided to tell you all. I hoped never to be obliged to do this. I thought enough had been revealed to answer your purpose. I – I believed Heaven would spare me this last trial, let me keep this last secret. It was of so strange a nature, so totally out of the reach of any man's surmise. But the finger of God is on me. It has followed this crime from the beginning, and there is no escape. By some strange means, some instinct of penetration, perhaps, you have discovered that I know something concerning this murder of which I have never told you, and that the hour I spent at Professor Darling's is accountable for this knowledge. Sir, I cannot struggle with Providence. I will tell you all I have hitherto hidden from the world if you will promise to let me know if my words will prove fatal, and if he – he who is on trial for his life – will be lost if I give to the court my last evidence against him?"

"But, Miss Dare," remonstrated the District Attorney, "no man can tell – " He did not finish his sentence. Something in the feverish gaze she fixed upon him stopped him. He felt that he could not palter with a woman in the grasp of an agony like this. So, starting again, he observed: "Let me hear what you have to say, and afterward we will consider what the effect of it may be; though a question of expediency should not come into your consideration, Miss Dare, in telling such truths as the law demands."

"No?" she broke out, giving way for one instant to a low and terrible laugh which curdled Mr. Ferris' blood and made him wish his duty had led him into the midst of any other scene than this.

But before he could remonstrate with her, this harrowing expression of misery had ceased, and she was saying in quiet and suppressed tones: