"Nothing but a stick with blood-marks on it. That, I'm afraid, wouldn't be a very agreeable sight for a lady's eye."
"She's proof," the lawyer whispered in the officer's ear. "Let's see the stick."
The sergeant considered this a very interesting experience—quite a jolly break in the dull monotony of the day. Hunting up the stick, he laid it in the lawyer's hands, and then turned his eye upon the lady.
She had gone pale, but it took her but an instant to regain her equanimity and hold out her own hand for the weapon.
With what purpose? What did she expect to see in it which others had not seen many times? She did not know, herself. She was simply following an impulse, just as she had felt herself borne on by some irresistible force in her dream. And so, the three stood there, the men's faces ironic, inquisitive, wondering at the woman's phlegm if not at her motive; hers, hidden behind her veil, but bent forward over the weapon in an attitude of devouring interest. Thus for a long, slow minute; then she impulsively raised her head and, beckoning the two men nearer, she directed attention to a splintered portion of the handle and asked them what they saw there.
"Nothing; just stick," declared the sergeant. "The marks you are looking for are higher up."
"And you, Mr. Black?"
He saw nothing either but stick. But he was little less abrupt in his answer.
"Do you mean those roughnesses?" he asked. "That's where the stick was whittled. You remember that he had been whittling at the stick—"
"Who?"