The morning droned along peacefully. Cummack and several others, including Mr. Mott, were recalled and questioned further. Rush made no interruptions whatever. The Judge yawned behind his hand. The women reporters whispered to one another that Mrs. Balfame looked lovelier than ever--only different, somehow. Even Mr. Broderick looked at her uneasily once or twice and confided to Mr. Wagstaff that he believed she and Rush had something up their sleeves; she no longer looked like a marble effigy of herself, but like a woman who was sure of getting what she wanted--much too sure. Her cheeks were almost pink. That was as close as he could get to the upheavals and revolutions that had taken place in Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore; and their causes. Immediately after luncheon, Rush showed the jury Defendant's Exhibit A: the suitcase that Mrs. Balfame had packed for her husband after his telephone message from the house of Mr. Cummack. He demonstrated that it must have been packed by a firm hand guided by a clear head, a head as far as possible from that cyclonic condition technically known as "brainstorm." When he read them the explicit directions Mrs. Balfame had written for the velvet handbag her generous husband had offered to bring from Albany, the jury craned its neck and puckered its brows. This suitcase had been examined on the night of the crime by police and reporters, the cynical men of the press characterising it later as a grand piece of bluff. But it looked very convincing in a court-room, and its innocent appeal was thrown into high relief by the indisputable fact that the murder had been committed at least half an hour later. On the other hand, there was reason to believe that Mrs. Balfame had deliberately planned the shooting and in that case it was quite natural for her to prepare something in the nature of an alibi--that is, if a woman, and an amateur in crime, could exercise so much foresight. The jury looked at the defendant out of the corner of its eye. Well, she, at least, looked cool enough for anything. Then came the great moment for which the spectators had braved discomfort, indignities, and even hunger. The counsel for the defence asked Mrs. Balfame to take the stand. Everybody in the court-room save the Judge, the jury, and the cool young reporters half rose as she walked rapidly behind the jury-box, mounted the stand, took the oath, bowed to the Court and arranged herself, with her usual dignified aloofness, in the witness-chair. She felt but a slight quiver of the nerves, no apprehension whatever. She knew her story too well to be disconcerted even by the sudden wasp-like assaults of the district attorney, and she was sensible of the moral support of practically all the women in the room.