She did not refuse to avail herself of the chair, though, as he could not help but notice, she did not thereby relax one iota of the restraint she put upon herself. "I do not understand," she murmured; "what question?" "Miss Dare, in all you have told the court, in all that you have told me, about this fatal and unhappy affair, you have never informed us how it was you first came to hear of it. You were----" "I heard it on the street corner," she interrupted, with what seemed to him an almost feverish haste. "First?" "Yes, first." "Miss Dare, had you been in the street long? Were you in it at the time the murder happened, do you think?" "I in the street?" "Yes," he repeated, conscious from the sudden strange alteration in her look that he had touched upon a point which, to her, was vital with some undefined interest, possibly that to which the surmises of Hickory had supplied a clue. "Were you in the street, or anywhere out-of-doors at the time the murder occurred? It strikes me that it would be well for me to know." "Sir," she cried, rising in her sudden indignation, "I thought the time for questions had passed. What means this sudden inquiry into a matter we have all considered exhausted, certainly as far as I am concerned." "Shall I show you?" he cried, taking her by the hand and leading her toward the mirror near by, under one of those impulses which sometimes effect so much. "Look in there at your own face and you will see why I press this question upon you." Astonished, if not awed, she followed with her eyes the direction of his pointing finger, and anxiously surveyed her own image in the glass. Then, with a quick movement, her hands went up before her face--which till that moment had kept its counsel so well--and, tottering back against a table, she stood for a moment communing with herself, and possibly summoning up her courage for the conflict she evidently saw before her. "What is it you wish to know?" she faintly inquired, after a long period of suspense and doubt. "Where were you when the clock struck twelve on the day Mrs. Clemmens was murdered?" Instantly dropping her hands, she turned toward him with a sudden lift of her majestic figure that was as imposing as it was unexpected. "I was at Professor Darling's house," she declared, with great steadiness. Mr. Ferris had not expected this reply, and looked at her for an instant almost as if he felt inclined to repeat his inquiry. "Do you doubt my word?" she queried. "Is it possible you question my truth at a time like this?" "No, Miss Dare," he gravely assured her. "After the great sacrifice you have publicly made in the interests of justice, it would be worse than presumptuous in me to doubt your sincerity now." She drew a deep breath, and straightened herself still more proudly. "Then am I to understand you are satisfied with the answer you have received?"