"Oh, you've explained! You mean your lawyers have explained it for you! Didn't they coach you day after day in that jail over there as to how you were to answer when the time came?"
"No, sir, they didn't!" replied Clyde, defiantly, catching Jephson's eye at this moment.
"Well, then when I asked you up there at Bear Lake how it was that this girl met her death—why didn't you tell me then and save all this trouble and suspicion and investigation? Don't you think the public would have listened more kindly and believingly there than it will now after you've taken five long months to think it all out with the help of two lawyers?"
"But I didn't think it out with any lawyers," persisted Clyde, still looking at Jephson, who was supporting him with all his mental strength. "I've just explained why I did that."
"You've explained! You've explained!" roared Mason, almost beside himself with the knowledge that this false explanation was sufficient of a shield or barrier for Clyde to hide behind whenever he found himself being too hard pressed—the little rat! And so now he fairly quivered with baffled rage as he proceeded.
"And before you went up—while she was writing them to you—you considered them sad, didn't you?"
"Why, yes, sir. That is"—he hesitated incautiously—"some parts of them anyhow."
"Oh, I see—only some parts of them now. I thought you just said you considered them sad."
"Well, I do."
"And did."