"We must know positively whether you entered
this room or not."
"I have no recollection of doing so"
"Then you can not tell us whether the little table was standing
there, with the candelabrum upon it or - "
"I can tell you nothing about it."
The major, after a long look at this suffering man, turned toward
Miss Tuttle.
"You must have loved your sister very much," he sententiously
remarked.
She flushed and for the first time her eyes fell from their
resting-place on Mr. Jeffrey's face.
"I loved her reputation," was her quiet answer, "and - " The
rest died in her throat.
But we all - such of us, I mean, who were possessed of the least
sensibility or insight, knew how that sentence sounded as finished
in her heart" and I loved him who asked this sacrifice of me."
Yet was her conduct not quite clear.
"And to save that reputation you tied the pistol to her wrist?"
insinuated the major.
"No," was her vehement reply. "I never knew what I was tying to
her. My testimony in that regard was absolutely true. She held
the pistol concealed in the folds of her dress. I did not dream
- I could not - that she was contemplating any such end to the
atrocious crime - to which she had confessed. Her manner was too
light, too airy and too frivolous - a manner adopted, as I now see,
to forestall all questions and hold back all expressions of
feeling on my part.
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