“We both swung round. Ruth had come in, unnoticed by us, and was staring at Shoreham with wonder in her eyes. Then, with a shudder, she stepped past her husband’s body and came into the room. “‘They’ve just told me you were here,’ she said, and then she gave a little cry. ‘Ned, why are you looking like that? Ned! you don’t think—you don’t think I did it?’ “She cowered back, looking first at him and then at me. “‘You _can’t_ think I did it,’ she whispered. ‘I tell you there was a man here—the man who shot him. Oh! they’ll believe me, won’t they?’ “‘Ruth,’ I said, ‘I want you to realise that we’re both of us your friends.’ Which is the sort of fatuous remark one does make when the tension is a bit acute. She never even glanced at me as I spoke; with a sort of sick horror in her eyes, she was staring at Shoreham, and I blundered on: ‘When you talked about this man you were unnerved—distraught; you didn’t know what you were saying. We both realise that. But now we’ve got to think of the best way of—of helping you. You see, the police must be sent for—we ought to have sent for them sooner—and——’ “She walked past me and went over to Shoreham. “‘Do you believe I did it, Ned?’ she said quietly. ‘If I swear to you that I didn’t—would that convince you?’ “‘But, Ruth,’ he cried desperately, ‘it isn’t me you’ve got to convince—it’s the police. A man couldn’t have got out of that window in the time. It’s a physical impossibility. If you told it to the police, they’d laugh. Tell us the truth, my dear. I beseech you. Tell us the truth, and we’ll see what can be done.’ “She stood very still, with her hands clenched by her sides. And then quite deliberately she spoke to Shoreham. “‘If you don’t believe there was a man here,’ she said, ‘you _must_ think I shot my husband. There was no one else who could have done it. Well—supposing I did. You acknowledge no justification for such an act?’ “I started to speak, but she silenced me with an imperative wave of her hand. “‘Please, Bill——Well, Ned—I’m waiting. If I did shoot him—what then?’” The Barrister paused to relight his cigar, and the others waited in silence. “She was staring at Shoreham,” he went on after a while, “with a faint, half-mocking, wholly tender smile on her lips, and if either he or I had been less dense that smile should have made us think. But at the moment I was absorbed in the problem of how to save her; while she was absorbed in a very different one concerning the mentality of the man she cared for. And Shoreham—well, he was absorbed in the old, old fight between love and duty, and the fierceness of the struggle was showing on his face.