As before, it was a look that chilled his heart and troubled him strangely. Kester had given his evidence in a perfectly fair and straightforward manner, without betraying the slightest animus against his cousin: indeed, he had distinctly stated more than once that he could not and would not believe that Lionel was guilty of the terrible crime for which he was arraigned, and the little sympathetic thrill which he threw into his soft musical voice at such times could hardly pass unnoticed by any one. But how reconcile such tokens of goodwill and cousinly affection with the fact that he had never once spoken a word to Lionel since they parted in the latter’s bedroom on the night of the murder? Even at the inquest, and during the few days that elapsed after the murder before Lionel was committed for trial, his cousin had never come near him, or made any effort whatever to see him. Afterwards there had been vague news of his serious illness in London; but, even then, he might surely have written, or have dictated half a dozen lines, had it been only to say that he was too ill to come in person. But during all those weary days of waiting in prison there had come no word, no message, no token to tell Lionel that there was any such person as Kester St. George in existence. And now, to-day, what did that look mean? To a man of Lionel’s frank and unsuspicious disposition it seemed difficult, nay next to impossible, to believe that he must count his cousin, not as a friend, but as an enemy; and yet the conviction was beginning to dawn slowly upon him that such was indeed the case. But with the dawning of that conviction there was growing up in his mind a dim, vague suspicion, shapeless as yet, but hideous in its shapelessness, to which neither name nor speech had yet been given, but which began to haunt him day and night like some weird nightmare which it was impossible to shake off. The next witness that was called was Martin Rooke.