“Mr. Howard, do you believe that story about the constable?”
“Believe it?” in surprise. “Certainly—er—why not?”
“Does it explain the empty pistol I found on the table?”
He considered briefly.
“No—o. But very possibly it needs no explanation. Rosamond may have drawn the charges herself.”
“Oh, mamma, please don’t invent any more horrors to-night. I—I—just can’t stand it.” Corinne’s voice indicated that she had borne too much. She was smothering an hysterical desire to cry.
“Corinne!” angrily.
“First, Mrs. Mearely had a terrible fright; then she had ptomaine poisoning; next she had been nearly murdered; and the last thing was she had shot herself!”
“Well! everything pointed....” her mother commenced, indignantly.
Corinne’s last vestige of control flew from her. She waved her hands about, in a very fair imitation of her mother’s favourite emotional gesticulations, and cried: