"None," answered the barrister; "but I must not deceive you, my dear young lady. His case is one of very great danger; for there never was a stronger chain of circumstantial evidence against any man than against him. But let us sit down and talk the matter over calmly;--nay, do not weep;--for on the evidence that you can give, may very likely depend the result of the trial." Rose nevertheless wept only the more from that announcement; for to think that the life of the man she loved might depend upon the manner in which she told a tale, simple enough, but susceptible of being turned in various ways by the skill of any unscrupulous counsel, did not at all tend to decrease her agitation. "This is very foolish of me," she said, at length, drying her eyes; "but I shall be better in a moment. Pray go on: what is it you wished to say?" "I am altogether stepping out of the ordinary professional course, Miss Tracy," replied the barrister; "but I have thought it better to see you myself rather than trust the task to another, in order to ascertain the nature of the evidence you can give; first, for the purpose of judging whether it will be expedient to call you at all on the part of my friend Winslow; and secondly, that I may so direct the questions to be put to you in your examination in chief as to prevent the cross-examining counsel from torturing you, or damaging the case of my client. Winslow tells me that he was speaking with you the moment before he quitted the garden. Now mind, in anything I say, my dear young lady, I wish to suggest nothing; for, in the first place, I am sure you are incapable of falsehood; and in the next, nothing can serve our friend but the simple truth." "But that is quite true," said Rose, "he was speaking with me near a little basin of gold and silver fish, close by the spot where the body was afterwards found. He then ran across the path and the greensward beyond, and jumped over the hedge just above the haw-haw. I can show you the precise spot." "By and by that may be useful," said the other; "but at present tell me, if you have no objection, what made you part so suddenly?" Rose coloured a little: but she replied frankly, "We heard the voices of two people coming down the arbutus walk, as we call it--a path bounded by evergreens, which leads, with several turns, into the broad walk past the fish-pond." "Were the persons speaking at any great distance?" inquired the barrister. "In a direct line, I should think forty or fifty yards," she answered; "but by the arbutus walk more than a hundred, I dare say." "Then were they speaking loud that you heard them so far?" asked her companion; "or only conversing quietly?" "Oh, they were speaking very loud and angrily," replied the young lady, "Sir William Winslow especially." "Then Sir William Winslow was one of the speakers," said the barrister.