"The motive of malpractice on the child," Silvia went on evenly, "and a troublesome _liaison_ with the mother do, indeed, seem to be powerful, but what can be said for those motives when I prove to your entire satisfaction that the setting of this fracture and the subsequent treatment and final results are among some of the best ever attending such cases in this large city; that the tuberculosis of the knee is the recurrence of a disease which had attacked the child five years before in the glands of the neck and which broke forth afresh in the knee because of her low physical condition and the immediate injury to the knee; that what I shall present will so conclusively prove the impossibility of a _liaison_ between Dr. Earl and Mrs. Bell that there cannot even remain the suspicion of such a thing? "The mystery of her support since last April I alone can clear up with checks and other evidence so convincing in character as to leave no doubt. It is embarrassing but necessary to bring myself as a witness into this trial. I found this poor woman with a great and secret sorrow, not knowing how to earn a living and by industrial independence develop the best qualities of her nature, and I undertook to teach her self-reliance and to lead her into the new life of social and economic freedom. Had she been thus trained from girlhood this tragedy would have been impossible, and her life would have been full of beauty, for I have never known a sweeter character. In the meantime I loaned--not gave, but loaned her the money to live upon. She would have resented a gift. She was making splendid progress with her fine sewing, and would soon have been independent of any financial aid. But the sorrow which hung over her, and which all this time was and still is a mystery to me, seemed to dominate her life, as I will presently show you. "It was the ghost of the old environment, of the old parasitical age, when women were so easily enslaved with the promise of idle luxury and transient caresses, stalking into the midst of a nobler effort and beckoning her backward while yet the understanding and courage were not sufficiently seasoned. Later I shall go into these things more fully. "I will prove to you by the proper Federal officials that, owing to a change of design by the government, the ten-cent stamps on this package, bearing this particular vignette, could only be purchased in three or four post-offices in the United States for several months before and at the time the package was mailed, and the only place east of the post-office at St. Louis was in Providence, Rhode Island, and I shall also prove that the defendant has not been in Providence in four years. You will notice that stamps to the value of sixty cents were placed on the parcel, when half that amount would have been sufficient, showing that whoever mailed it did not care to have it officially weighed.