“Where were you on the afternoon of Tuesday, August eighteenth, about one o’clock, Miss Diana?” Diana answered at once, and in a clear low voice. “In this building, Judge, in a small room on the lower floor.” “A small room on the lower floor? Let us see, Miss Diana,”--the judge tapped his book with his spectacles,--“the room to the right, was it, at the end of the west corridor?” Diana explained the position of the room and the vicinity of the staircase. “Ah,” said the old lawyer, with the air of having made a discovery, “to be sure; it’s the room we call ‘the cage’--on the basement floor. Rather a dreary place to wait, Miss Diana: how long were you there?” “I am not sure,” she replied, coloring suddenly, “but certainly an hour. It was a little after twelve when we reached the building, and I heard the clock strike one just before the shots were fired.” “Ah! You heard the shots?” “I did.” “How many did you hear, Miss Diana?” the judge asked in his easiest, most conversational tone. “Two, Judge, two reports in quick succession.” “And you heard only two?” his tone was sharp, incisive; it cut like a knife. Diana threw him a startled glance, but she was still composed, though the breathless silence in the room was deeply affecting. “I heard but two,” she said firmly. “How soon after one o’clock?” he demanded, his bony forefinger following her testimony, as it seemed, across the cover of the book he held. “The clock in the hall had just struck.” Diana was holding every instinct, every thought, in hand. Her eyes never left his rugged face, yet, all the while, she was conscious of the court-room, growing dim in the early twilight, of the rows of upturned eager faces, but more conscious still of the pale face of Caleb Trench. Judge Hollis made some notes, then he looked up suddenly. “Miss Royall,” he said formally, “do you know the prisoner at the bar?” Diana drew a deep breath; she was aware of a hundred pairs of curious eyes. The awful silence of the room seemed to leap upon her and bear her down. She turned her head with an effort and met Caleb’s eyes. For a single second they looked at each other, with the shock of mutual feeling, then she answered, and her low voice reached the farthest corner of the crowded room. “I do.” Judge Hollis waited an instant; he let every word she said have its full effect and weight. “Did you see him upon the morning of the assassination?” “I did.” “In the basement of the court-house?” “In the room which you call the cage, Judge Hollis,” she replied quietly, though she colored again; “I saw him there twice.” “At what time?” the old man’s harsh voice rang, like the blow of a sledge-hammer. “He was with me in that room when the clock struck one, and we both heard the shots fired.” Diana spoke gently, but her voice thrilled; she knew that, in the face of the scurrilous attacks upon Caleb Trench, her position was at once courageous and perilous.