"I couldn't say. I'm not good at guessing time. There are some folks, like Senda Wesner, seem to have a clock going in their heads, but I'm not one of them. Perhaps it was ten minutes."
"Miss Lund," the district attorney stroked his great beard, as he was apt to do in driving home a crucial question. "Can you now fix more precisely the moment of the door slam, which you say convinced you of Ellen's departure?"
"No, sir; the door slam," Bertha touched her forehead, trying to remember, "the door slam is all mixed up with the barking and fire, so I can't untangle it at all."
"It seems to be a part of this chain of events you have just narrated so clearly for us? You think, you thought at the time, it was Ellen leaving the house?"
"Yes, sir. It was the back door. Who else could it be? Besides, Mr. Robert was quiet. He never slammed the door."
"I simply wanted the girl's best evidence to the fact that they were alone in the house at this time," said the district attorney.
"But the girl, Ellen, seems to have been about until the fire was set," answered the judge.