“I did not go for the pistol,” she finally declared. But she did not say what she had gone for, and the coroner did not press her.
Again the tide swung back.
She seemed to feel the change but did not show it in the way naturally looked for. Instead of growing perturbed or openly depressed she bloomed into greater beauty and confronted with steadier eye, not us, but the men she instinctively faced as the tide of her fortunes began to lower. Did the coroner perceive this and recognize at last both the measure of her attractions and the power they were likely to carry with them? Perhaps, for his voice took an acrid note as he declared:
“You had another errand in that room?”
She let her head droop just a trifle.
“Alas!” she murmured.
“You went to the book-shelves and took out a book with a peculiar cover, a cover which Mr. Jeffrey has already recognized as that of the book in which he found a certain note.”
“You have said it,” she faltered.
“Did you take such a book out?”
“I did.”