'About all. I had only enjoyed his acquaintance six-and-thirty hours at the time of the murder.' 'You can sit down,' said Mr. Pergament. 'Justina Elgood,' cried the summoning officer, and Justina stood up in the crowded room, pale to the lips, but unfaltering. Again Churchill Penwyn raised those thoughtful eyes of his, and looked at the girl's pallid face. 'Not a common type of girl,' he said to himself. CHAPTER XII. 'BRAVE SPIRITS ARE A BALSAM TO THEMSELVES.' Maurice Clissold also looked at the girl as she stood up at the end of the table in the little bit of clear space left for the witnesses. A shaft of sunshine slanted from the skylight. The room was built out from the house, and lighted from the top, an apartment usually devoted to Masonic meetings and public dinners. In that clear radiance the girl's face was wondrously spiritualized. Easy to fancy that some being not quite of this common earth stood there, and that from those pale lips the awful truth would speak as if by the voice of revelation. So Maurice Clissold thought as he looked at her. Never till this moment had she appeared to him beautiful; and now it was no common beauty which he beheld in her, but a strange and spiritual charm impossible of definition. 'You were the last person who saw Mr. Penwyn alive, except his murderer?' said Mr. Pergament, interrogatively, after the usual formula had been gone through. 'I opened the shop door for him when he went out, after supper.' 'At what o'clock?' 'Half-past two.' 'Was he perfectly sober at that time?' 'Oh yes,' with an indignant look. 'Was he going back to the "Waterfowl" alone?' 'Quite alone.' 'Did he say anything particular to you just at last?—anything that it might be important for us to know?' A faint colour flushed the pale face at the question. 'Nothing.' 'Is that all you can tell us?' 'There is only one thing more,' the girl answered, calmly. 'I stood at the door a few minutes to watch Mr. Penwyn walking up the street, and just as he turned the corner a man passed on the opposite side of the way in the same direction.' 'Towards Lowgate?' 'Yes.' 'What kind of a man?' 'He was rather tall, and wore an overcoat, and a thick scarf around his neck, as if it had been winter.' 'Did you see his face?' 'No.' 'Or notice anything else about him—anything besides the overcoat and the muffler?' 'Nothing.' 'You say he was tall. Was he as tall as that gentleman, do you suppose?—Stand up for a moment, if you please, Mr. Clissold.' Clissold stood up. He was above the average height of tall men, well over six feet. 'No, he was not so tall as that.' 'Are you sure of that? A man would look taller in this room than in the street. Do you allow for that difference?' inquired Mr. Pergament. 'I do not believe that the man I saw that night was so tall as Mr. Clissold, nor so broad across the shoulders.' 'That will do.'