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In a hostile tone Mrs. Earle addressed her.

“Rose,” she said, “this is the district attorney.” To him she added: “She calls herself Rose Gerard.”

One hand the girl held close against her side, with the other she brushed back the hair from her forehead. From half-closed eyes she stared at Wharton defiantly.

“Well,” she challenged, what about it?”

Wharton seated himself in front of the roller-top desk.

“Are you strong enough to tell me?” he asked.

His tone was kind, and this the girl seemed to resent.

“Don’t you worry,” she sneered, ” I’m strong enough. Strong enough to tell all I know–to you, and to the papers, and to a jury–until I get justice.” She clinched her free hand and feebly shook it at him. ” THAT’S what I’m going to get,” she cried, her voice breaking hysterically, “justice.”

From behind the arm-chair in which the girl half-reclined Mrs. Earle caught the eye of the district attorney and shrugged her shoulders.

“Just what DID happen?” asked Wharton.

Apparently with an effort the girl pulled herself together.

“I first met your brother-in-law—-” she began.

Wharton interrupted quietly.

“Wait!” he said. “You are not talking to me as anybody’s brother-in-law, but as the district attorney.”

The girl laughed vindictively.

“I don’t wonder you’re ashamed of him!” she jeered.

Again she began: “I first met Ham Cutler last May. He wanted to marry me then. He told me he was not a married man.”

As her story unfolded, Wharton did not again interrupt; and speaking quickly, in abrupt, broken phrases, the girl brought her narrative to the moment when, as she claimed, Cutler had attempted to kill her. At this point a knock at the locked door caused both the girl and her audience to start. Wharton looked at Mrs. Earle inquiringly, but she shook her head, and with a look at him also of inquiry, and of suspicion as well, opened the door.

With apologies her head waiter presented a letter.

“For Mr. Wharton,” he explained, “from his chauffeur.”

Wharton’s annoyance at the interruption was most apparent. “What the devil—-” he began.

He read the note rapidly, and with a frown of irritation raised his eyes to Mrs. Earle.

“He wants to go to New Rochelle for an inner tube,” he said. “How long would it take him to get there and back?”

The hard and distrustful expression upon the face of Mrs. Earle, which was habitual, was now most strongly in evidence. Her eyes searched those of Wharton.

“Twenty minutes, she said.

“He can’t go,” snapped Wharton.

“Tell him,” he directed the waiter, to stay where he is. Tell him I may want to go back to the office any minute.” He turned eagerly to the girl. “I’m sorry,” he said. With impatience he crumpled the note into a ball and glanced about him. At his feet was a waste-paper basket. Fixed upon him he saw, while pretending not to see, the eyes of Mrs. Earle burning with suspicion. If he destroyed the note, he knew suspicion would become certainty. Without an instant of hesitation, carelessly he tossed it intact into the waste- paper basket. Toward Rose Gerard he swung the revolving chair.

“Go on, Please,” he commanded.

The girl had now reached the climax of her story, but the eyes of Mrs. Earle betrayed the fact that her thoughts were elsewhere. With an intense and hungry longing, they were concentrated upon her own waste-paper basket.

The voice of the girl in anger and defiance recalled Mrs. Earle to the business of the moment.

“He tried to kill me,” shouted Miss Rose. “And his shooting himself in the shoulder was a bluff. THAT’S my story; that’s the story I’m going to tell the judge “–her voice soared shrilly — “that’s the story that’s going to send your brother-in-law to Sing Sing!”

For the first time Mrs. Earle contributed to the general conversation.

“You talk like a fish,” she said.

The girl turned upon her savagely.

“If he don’t like the way I talk,” she cried, “he can come across!”

Mrs. Earle exclaimed in horror. Virtuously her hands were raised in protest.