"Yes, if you will also add that you were in the observatory at Professor Darling's house," he responded quickly, convinced there was some mystery here, and seeing but one way to reach it. "Very well, then, I was," she averred, without hesitation. "You were!" he echoed, advancing upon her with a slight flush on his middle-aged cheek, that evinced how difficult it was for him to pursue this conversation in face of the haughty and repellant bearing she had assumed. "You will, perhaps, tell me, then, why you did not see and respond to the girl who came into that room at this very time, with a message from a lady who waited below to see you?" "Ah!" she cried, succumbing with a suppressed moan to the inexorable destiny that pursued her in this man, "you have woven a net for me!" And she sank again into a chair, where she sat like one stunned, looking at him with a hollow gaze which filled his heart with compassion, but which had no power to shake his purpose as a District Attorney. "Yes," he acknowledged, after a moment, "I have woven a net for you, but only because I am anxious for the truth, and desirous of furthering the ends of justice. I am confident you know more about this crime than you have ever revealed, Miss Dare; that you are acquainted with some fact that makes you certain Mr. Mansell committed this murder, notwithstanding the defence advanced in his favor. What is this fact? It is my office to inquire. True," he admitted, seeing her draw back with denial written on every line of her white face, "you have a right to refuse to answer me here, but you will have no right to refuse to answer me to-morrow when I put the same question to you in the presence of judge and jury." "And"--her voice was so husky he could but with difficulty distinguish her words--"do you intend to recall me to the stand to-morrow?" "I am obliged to, Miss Dare." "But I thought the time for examination was over; that the witnesses had all testified, and that nothing remained now but for the lawyers to sum up." "When in a case like this the prisoner offers a defence not anticipated by the prosecution, the latter, of course, has the right to meet such defence with proof in rebuttal." "Proof in rebuttal? What is that?" "Evidence to rebut or prove false the matters advanced in support of the defence." "Ah!" "I must do it in this case--if I can, of course." She did not reply. "And even if the testimony I desire to put in is not rebuttal in its character, no unbiassed judge would deny to counsel the privilege of reopening his case when any new or important fact has come to light." As if overwhelmed by a prospect she had not anticipated, she hurriedly arose and pointed down the room to a curtained recess. "Give me five minutes," she cried; "five minutes by myself where no one can look at me, and where I can think undisturbed upon what I had better do." "Very well," he acquiesced; "you shall have them." She at once crossed to the small retreat.