"How can I? You see, I wasn't there!"
"So that, by no possibility," said the coroner, "could this be yours?"
He launched the scarf, like a soft, white serpent, almost in her face. And the girl shrank from it, with a low cry. She might as well have knotted it about her neck.
And in the horrible stillness that followed her cry, the coroner said, "Your nerves seem quite shattered, Miss Hope. I was only going to ask you if you didn't think that ornament, in case it was not yours, might have been left on Mr. Ingham's table by the young lady who called on him that afternoon."
With a brave attempt at her former mild innocence, Christina responded, "I don't know."
"Neither can you tell us, I suppose,—it would straighten matters out greatly—who that caller was?"
"No, I can't. I'm sorry."
"Think again, Miss Hope. Are there so many smartly dressed and pretty young ladies of your acquaintance, with curly red hair and, as Mr. Dodd informs us, with cute little feet?"
Christina was silent.
"What? And yet she knows you well enough to say to your fiancé—'I don't wish to get Christina into trouble'!" Whose was the smile of malice, now! "Come, come, Miss Hope, you're trifling with us! Tell us the address of this lady, and you'll make us your debtors!"