The beautiful Mrs. Cabot, an appealing picture in her sables and crepe, had been, of course, her own chief witness. She had told of her tried determination to believe in her husband and the girl whom she had sheltered from storm-blasts which had seemed driving her to an unthinkable fate. She had been slow--too slow to admit that any form so young and fair could house such veteran vices. In broken sentences, as if warding off an emotional breakdown, she had outlined the hold which the governess had won upon her own heart through the heart of her only child. Not until after the boy’s death had she brought herself to consider the suggestions of servants and friends that all was not well within her household. When the doctors had prescribed a change of climate for her, she had pretended to go South, but with the idea of returning at once in order to determine the truth for herself. Her maid, a French woman in whom she had felt all confidence, she had sent on an errand back to the house to learn late developments. While Annette was still within, her detectives had followed her husband there. This maid evidently had been over-bribed, for, after signaling the detectives that the moment was propitious to enter, she had disappeared. That fact was stronger than any report could have been as evidence against Mr. Cabot. All that she felt she needed to add to the testimony of the detectives was the name of the Circe who had destroyed the good-faith of her home. Would New York be surprised to hear this new chapter in the unparalleled career of one already known as “Grief to Men”? “You let her name me in open court?” Dolores covered her veiled face with her hands. “What did it matter when you had been named in the legal papers?” the attorney reminded her. “I was able, however, to check her further attempts to pay her respects to you by insisting that she need not distress herself.” “And the--the defense?” “John had no defense that could be made in such a proceeding. His attorney’s declaration that Mr. Cabot had nothing which he cared to offer in the way of testimony may have convinced the crowd that you were being used, either with or without your consent, to lift his yoke, but it clearly puzzled the judge. Before we reach our destination, Miss Trent, I want to express something of the high esteem in which I hold you. Oh, don’t draw back--don’t look so frightened! This is no declaration in the ordinary sense.” Removing his hat, he rubbed his egg-white forehead as though it were a vocabulary from which words might be extracted by friction. “Never have I been in the plight called ‘love’--never expect to be,” he continued. “In any case, never shall I marry. Maybe because I thought so much of that mother o’ mine. Maybe because I think so little of marriage. Can you see humor in the statement that women, while my professional specialty, are not at all in my line personally? That fact may help you to appreciate what I want to say to you.”