Lady Sarah went for her, and brought her. A delicate girl, with a transparent skin, looking almost too weak to walk. She was in a visible tremor, and shook as she stood before the police-officer: whose name, it turned out, was Pullet. But he was a man of pleasant manners and speech, and he hastened to reassure her. "There's nothing to be afraid of, young lady," said he, with a broad smile. "We are not ogres: though I do believe some timid folks look upon us as such. Just please to compose yourself; and tell me as much as you can recollect of this." "I laid out the bracelets here," began Alice, indicating the table underneath the window. "The diamond bracelet, the one lost, I placed just here," she added, touching the middle of the table at the back, "and the rest I put around it." "It was worth more than any of the others, I believe, ma'am?" "Much more," growled the colonel. The officer nodded to himself and Alice resumed: "I left the bracelets, and went into the other room and sat down at one of the front windows----" "With the intervening doors open, I presume?" "Wide open, as they are now," said Alice. "The other two doors were shut. Lady Sarah came up from dinner almost directly; and then, as it appears, the bracelet was not there." "You are quite certain of that?" "I am quite certain," interposed Lady Sarah. "I looked particularly for that bracelet: not seeing it, I supposed Miss Seaton had not laid it out. I chose out a pair, put them on, returned the others to the box, and saw Miss Dalrymple lock it." "Then your ladyship did not miss the bracelet at that time?" questioned Mr. Pullet. "I did not miss it in one sense, because I did not know it had been put out," she returned. "I saw it was not there." "But did you not miss it?" he asked of Alice. "I only reached the table as Lady Sarah was closing the lid of the box," she answered. "Lady Frances Chenevix had detained me in the front-room." "My sister," explained Lady Sarah. "She is staying with me, and had come up with me from dinner." "You say you went and sat in the front-room," resumed the officer to Alice, in a quicker tone than he had used previously; "will you show me where?" Alice did not stir; she only turned her head towards the front-room, and pointed to a chair a little drawn away from the window. "In that chair," she said. "It stood as it stands now." The officer looked baffled. "You must have had the back-room full in view from there; both the door and window." "Quite so," replied Alice. "If you will sit down in it, you will perceive that I had an uninterrupted view, and faced the doors of both rooms." "I perceive that from here. And you saw no one enter?" "No one did enter. It was impossible any one could do so without my observing it. Had either of the doors been only quietly unlatched, I must have both heard and seen."