Elithe did not think that a question, and did not answer until it was repeated; then she said: “If sitting by him all night, with Mrs. Stokes and my brother in the room, was nursing him, I did so. Yes.” The red on her face was deepening, but her voice was still steady as the cross-examination proceeded: “You sat with him all night, and after that you saw him often?” “Yes, very often in Samona, when he came to the hotel.” “He visited at your house on terms of intimacy?” “Yes.” “Was he respected in Samona?” “Yes, highly respected, and in Deep Gulch, too. The miners worshipped him,” Elithe said, with energy. She had forgotten Paul for the time being, and was defending Jack. “And he was perfectly straight while he was there,—sober, I mean?” “Perfectly,” Elithe replied, wondering why such questions should be asked her, and, glancing at her aunt, whose glasses had slipped to the end of her nose and who, under her breath, was calling the lawyer a “dum fool,” notwithstanding that he was on Paul’s side, and for his sake trying to confuse Elithe. “If he were so sober and circumspect in Samona while you were there, why did he change, do you think?” was the next query, to which Elithe’s reply was quick and decisive: “I supposed I was here to tell what I know, and not what I think.” Paul’s hands struck each other in a wordless cheer; the boys in the gallery laughed, and the lawyer’s gaze came back from the spider and the fly to this slip of a girl, who had more backbone than he had given her credit for. Her eyes were still upon him,—very tired now and worried and beseeching, as if asking him to let her go and leave Jack Percy in his grave. He had no such intention. If he could prove her prepossession in Jack’s favor he would gain a point, and thus, perhaps, weaken her testimony by showing that her evidence was biased. “True,” he said, “you are here to tell what you know. You and Mr. Percy were great friends? Isn’t that so?” “We were good friends. Yes.” “And you liked him very much?” “Dum fool!” Miss Hansford said, louder than before, while her glasses dropped from her nose to the floor, where they lay unheeded. She guessed the drift of the questioning and was hot with indignation. For a moment Elithe hesitated and her face grew spotted as she, too, began to see the snare before her. “I liked him. Yes.” “Very much?” She did not answer him at once, and when she did she said, “What does it matter whether I liked him much or little?”