If Natalie could have been transferred to canvas as she looked then, the picture would have made any painter's fortune. The girl was in white, soft, crêpy wool stuff, that clung and fell in lovely lines, for the gown had been designed by no less a genius than Stannard himself. It was his whim to have Natalie about the house in the gowns in which he posed her, that he might catch an occasional unexpected effect. But the simple affair was not out of place as a morning house-gown, and more than one woman in the audience took careful note of its cut and pattern. Her golden hair was carelessly tossed up in a mass of curls, held with one hair-pin, a huge amber thing, that threatened every minute to slip out, and one couldn't help wishing it would. Her wonderful eyes had long dark lashes, and her pink cheeks were rosy now, because of her nervous excitement. So thin was her delicate skin that her hands and throat were flushed a soft pink and her curved lips were scarlet. Yet notwithstanding the marvellous colouring, there was not one iota of doubt that it was Nature's own. The play of rose and white in her cheeks, the sudden occasional paling of the red lips and the perfection of the tiny shreds of curl that clustered at her throbbing temples all spoke of the real humanity of this girl's beauty. Small wonder the artist wanted her for his own pictures exclusively! Joyce was a beautiful woman, but this child, this fairy princess, was a dream, a very Titania of charm and wonder. Not by her testimony, not by words of assertion, but by her ethereal, her incredible beauty, this wonder-girl took captive every heart and, without effort, secured the sympathy and belief of everybody present. And yet, the Coroner had to do his duty. Had to say, in curt, accusing tones, "Then how do you explain Mr. Stannard's dying words, 'Natalie, not Joyce!'?" The red lips quivered, the roseleaf cheeks grew pinker and great tears formed in the appealing blue eyes. "Don't ask me that!" she cried; "oh, pray, don't ask me _that_!" "But I do, I must ask you. And I must ask you why you stabbed him? Had he asked you to pose in any way to which you were unwilling to consent? Had he insisted, after you refused? Was he tyrannical? Brutal? Cruel? Did you have to defend yourself? Was it on an impulse of sudden anger or indignation?" "Stop! Stop!" cried Natalie, putting her pink finger tips into her tiny, rosy ears. "Stop! He was none of those things! He was good to me, he--he----" "Good to you, yet you killed him! Kind to you, yet you took his life----" "I didn't! I tell you I didn't! It was Joyce! She----" "Miss Vernon, if you came into the room in the dark, how could you effect an entrance without upsetting something? There are even more small racks and stands on that side of the room than the other." "No, I didn't upset anything----" and Natalie stared at him.