"That is probably true," said the other, and the girl gasped; he was so cool, so self-possessed, so sure of himself.
"I suggest to you," the counsel went on, "that in those Rents Jasper Cole became Rex Holland."
There was a buzz of excitement, a sudden soft clamor of voices through which the usher's harsh demand for silence cut like a knife.
"Your suggestion is an absurd one," said Jasper, without heat, "and I presume that you are going to produce evidence to support so infamous a statement."
"What evidence I produce," said counsel, with asperity, "is a matter for me to decide."
"It is also a matter for the witness," interposed the soft voice of the judge. "As you have suggested that Holland was a party to the murder, and as you are inferring that Rex Holland is Jasper Cole, it is presumed that you will call evidence to support so serious a charge."
"I am not prepared to call evidence, my lord, and if your lordship thinks the question should not have been put I am willing to withdraw it."
The judge nodded and turned his head to the jury.
"You will consider that question as not having been put, gentlemen," he said. "Doubtless counsel is trying to establish the fact that one person might just as easily have been Rex Holland as another. There is no suggestion that Mr. Cole went to Silvers Rents—which I understand is in a very poor neighborhood—with any illegal intent, or that he was committing any crime or behaving in any way improperly by paying such frequent visits. There may be something in the witness's life associated with that poor house which has no bearing on the case and which he does not desire should be ventilated in this court. It happens to many of us," the judge went on, "that we have associations which it would embarrass us to reveal."
This little incident closed that portion of the cross-examination, and counsel went on to the night of the murder.