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She dropped down on her knees beside the poor girl, and gently stroked her free hand, reassuring her in a low tone.

“There, there,” she soothed. “You are not well, Kitty. Perhaps, after all, there may be something–some explanation.”

In spite of all, however, Kitty was on the verge of the wildest hysterics. Annie Grayson sniffed contemptuously at such weakness.

Drummond came over, an exasperating sneer on his face. As he looked down he saw what Constance was doing, and she rose, so that all could see now.

“This girl,” she said, speaking rapidly, “is afflicted with a nervous physical disorder, a mania, which is uncontrollable, and takes this outlet. It is emotional insanity–not loss of control of the will, but perversion of the will.”

“Humph!” was Drummond’s sole comment with a significant glance at the pile of goods on the table.

“It is not the articles themselves so much,” went on Constance, following his glance, “as it is the pleasure, the excitement, the satisfaction–call it what you will–of taking them. A thief works for the benefit he may derive from objects stolen after he gets them. Here is a girl who apparently has no further use for an article after she gets it, who forgets, perhaps hates it.”

“Oh, yes,” remarked Drummond; “but why are they all so careful not to get caught? Every one is responsible who knows the nature and consequences of his act.”

Constance had wheeled about.

“That is not so,” she exclaimed. “Any modern alienist will tell you that. Sometimes the chief mark of insanity may be knowing the nature and consequences, craftily avoiding detection with an almost superhuman cunning. No; the test is whether knowing the nature and consequences, a person suffers under such a defect of will that in spite of everything, in the face of everything, that person cannot control that will.”

As she spoke, she had quickly detached the little instrument and had placed it on Annie Grayson’s arm. If it had been a Bertillon camera, or even a finger-print outfit, Annie Grayson would probably have fought like a tigress. But this thing was a new one. She had a peculiar spirit of bravado.

“Such terms as kleptomania,” went on Constance, “are often regarded as excuses framed up by the experts to cover up plain ordinary stealing. But did you wiseacres of crime ever stop to think that perhaps they do actually exist?

“There are many things that distinguish such a woman as I have described to you from a common thief. There is the insane desire to steal–merely for stealing’s sake–a morbid craving. Of course in a sense it is stealing. But it is persistent, incorrigible, irrational, motiveless, useless.

“Stop and think about it a moment,” she concluded, lowering her voice and taking advantage of the very novelty of the situation she had created. “Such diseases are the product of civilization, of sensationalism. Naturally enough, then, woman, with her delicately balanced nervous organization, is the first and chief offender–if you insist on calling such a person an offender under your antiquated methods of dealing with such cases.”

She had paused.

“What did you say you called this thing?” asked Drummond as he tapped the arrangement on Annie Grayson’s arm.

He was evidently not much impressed by it, yet somehow instinctively regarded it with somewhat of the feelings of an elephant toward a mouse.

“That?” answered Constance, taking it off Annie Grayson’s wrist before she could do anything with it. “Why, I don’t know that I said anything about it. It is really a sphygmomanometer–the little expert witness that never lies–one of the instruments the insurance companies use now to register blood pressure and discover certain diseases. It occurred to me that it might be put to other and equally practical uses. For no one can conceal the emotions from this instrument, not even a person of cast-iron nerves.”

She had placed it on Drummond’s arm. He appeared fascinated.

“See how it works?” she went on. “You see one hundred and twenty- five millimeters is the normal pressure. Kitty Carr is absolutely abnormal. I do not know, but I think that she suffers from periodical attacks of vertigo. Almost all kleptomaniacs do. During an attack they are utterly irresponsible.”