“Her fingers opened; the glass fell from her hand, and lay in broken fragments beside her plate. Carmel followed suit, and, before I knew it, my own fingers had opened, and my own glass lay in pieces on the table-cloth beneath me. Only Ranelagh’s hand remained steady. He did not choose to please her, or he was planning his perfidy and had not caught her words or understood her action. She held her breath, watching that hand; and I can hear the gasp yet with which she saw him set his glass down quietly on the board. That’s the story of those three broken glasses. If she had not died that night, I should be laughing at them now; but she did die and I don’t laugh! I curse—curse her recreant lover, and sometimes myself! Do you want anything more of me? I’m eager to be gone, if you don’t.”
The district attorney sought out and lifted a paper from the others lying on the desk before him. It was the first movement he had made since Cumberland began his tale.
“I’m sorry,” said he, with a rapid examination of the paper in his hand, “but I shall have to detain you a few minutes longer. What happened after the dinner? Where did you go from the table?”
“I went to my room to smoke. I was upset and thirsty as a fish.”
“Have you liquor in your room?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did you have any that night?”
“Not a drop. I didn’t dare. I wanted that champagne bottle, but Adelaide had been too quick for me. It was thrown out—wasted—I do believe, wasted.”
“So you did not drink? You only smoked in your room?”
“Smoked one cigar. That was all. Then I went down town.”