"Of course it is," declared Barry. "I know my father was madly in love with Miss Vernon, and though he was fond of his wife, it was not the first time he had been interested in the pretty face of another woman. I want to say right here, that I revere and respect my father's memory, but I cannot deny his faults. And he was far too careless of his wife's feelings in these matters. My mother died many years ago, and for a long time my father led a butterfly existence, outside of his art, yes, and in it, too. Then when he married a second time he did not settle down to the generally accepted model of a married man, but continued to admire pretty women wherever he met them. Now, it is more than likely that in his dying moments his brain half dazed, and seeing the two before him, he protested his love for the model he admired and put her ahead of his wife. I do not defend my father's speech but to me it is explained." "It may be so," said Roberts. "Now here's another point. Mrs. Stannard declares she heard her husband talking to another woman or at least to somebody, in his studio, as she herself stood in the Billiard Room, near the connecting door. Shall we say this is an invented story of hers?" "Let me see," said Barry, "what were the words?" "To the effect that he was not willing to leave his wife for her, and that as a consolation she could have the emeralds." "Practically what was in the note," exclaimed Mrs. Faulkner. "Almost," returned Roberts. "Now was Miss Vernon there and were these words addressed to her? this question being quite apart from consideration of her as the criminal." "If so, then the letter was to her," said Beatrice. "And it wasn't," maintained Barry. "My father admired Natalie,--made love to her, we'll say, but he never went so far as to offer her jewels, nor did she want him to marry her, as the overheard conversation implies." "Could this be the way of it?" said Beatrice. "Suppose Mr. Stannard was even then writing that note----" "But it was found in his desk." "Well, suppose he was thinking it over, and muttered to himself the actual wording of it. Mrs. Stannard says she heard no other voice, so may he not have been alone in the studio at that time?" Bobsy Roberts turned this over in his mind. "It is a possibility," he conceded. "And then, let us say, after hearing those words, Mrs. Stannard entered the room, and confronted him, and perhaps there was a quarrel and in a moment of insane rage, Mrs. Stannard caught up the etching needle and----" "It isn't at all like her," said Barry, "but I can only say it is more easily to be conceived of in her case than in Natalie's. I don't want to admit the possibility of Joyce being the criminal, but I can believe it, before I can imagine Natalie doing such a thing. And as you say, Joyce had motive, and Natalie had none."