A cry of mingled horror and fear comes from her lips. All eyes turn on the stylish, dark-gray silk that clings so gracefully to the tall, finely molded figure. True enough, there are some dark red stains on the middle breadth between the lower frills and the upper drapery.
"Can you account for them?" the coroner repeats.
But after one swift glance at the tell-tale marks, Maud crimsons, and the tears start into her eyes.
"You must pardon me; I spoke falsely to you just now," she says, with desperate calmness. "I can tell you how those stains came there. They are Vernon Clyde's blood."
Again an ominous whisper runs through the circle of listeners. Maud glances around her fearfully. She meets strange, averted glances from faces that have been wont to smile upon her before. A strange light comes into her eyes.
"Oh, what do they mean?" she cries. "They do not think, do they, that I killed Mr. Clyde? I tell you he killed himself. He told me he would do so if I refused to marry him."
"Tell us how those blood-stains came upon your dress," the coroner answers, briefly and gravely.
She clasps her hands and shivers through all her imperially perfect form.
"I did come back here last night," she says, in a fearful whisper. "My uncle had discarded me. Mr. Charteris had married another, and I had no one to turn to but the lover I had discarded a little while before. So I hurried back, thinking I would be Clyde's wife after all, but when I came, he," with a gasp, "he lay dead before me. I had thought it but a mere idle threat to frighten me, but he had kept his word faithfully. He had shot himself through the heart. I knelt down beside him, and laid my hand on his breast, but it was cold and still. Oh, you must not think I killed him! I loved him, and I would have gone away with him, but I was afraid of losing my uncle's money," she ends, with a choking sob.
"Why did you not raise an alarm when you found him dead?"