"Why?" The host looked suspicious and even anxious.
It was Chaldea who replied, and when doing so she fished out the battered bullet. "To see if this fits the barrel of the pistol which the golden rye gave you, my great one," said she significantly.
Garvington started, his color changed and he stole a queer look at the impassive face of his cousin. "The pistol which the golden rye gave me?" he repeated slowly and weighing the words. "Did you give me one, Noel?"
"I gave you a couple in a case," answered Lambert without mentioning the date of the present. "And if this bullet fits the one you used—"
"It will prove nothing," interrupted the other hurriedly, and with a restless movement. "I fired from the doorstep, and my bullet, after breaking Pine's arm, must have vanished into the beyond. The shot which killed him was fired from the shrubbery, and, it is quite easy to guess how it passed through him and buried itself in the tree which was in the line of fire."
"I want to see the pistols," said Lambert insistently, and this time Chaldea looked at him, wondering why he was so anxious to condemn himself.
"Oh, very well," snapped Garvington, with some reluctance, and walked toward the door. There he paused, and evidently awaited to arrive at some conclusion, the nature of which his cousin could not guess. "Oh, very well," he said again, and left the room.
"He thinks that you are a fool, as I do, my Gorgious," said Chaldea scornfully. "You wish to hang yourself it seems, my rye."
"Oh, I don't think that I shall be the one to be hanged. Tell me, Chaldea, do you really believe that I am guilty?"
"Yes," said the girl positively. "And if you had married me I should have saved you."