“Miss Tuttle likes me even less than Veronica did. I do not think she would have accepted, certainly she would not have desired, my presence in her counsels. But of one thing I wish her to be assured, her and the world in general. Any money she may need at this—at this unhappy crisis in her life, she will find amply supplied. She has no claims on me, but that makes little difference where the family honor is concerned. Her mother’s husband was my brother—the girl shall have all she needs. I will write her so.” He was moving toward his carriage. “Fine turnout?” he interrogatively remarked. I assented with all the surprise,—with all the wonder even—which his sublime egotism seemed to invite. “It is the best that Downey could raise in the time I allotted him. When I really finger the money, we shall see, we shall see.” His foot was on the carriage-step. He looked up at the west. The sun was almost down but not quite. “Have you any special business with me?” he asked, lingering with what I thought a surprising display of conscientiousness till the last ray of direct sunlight had disappeared. I glanced up at the coachman sitting on his box as rigid as any stone. “You may speak,” said he; “Cæsar neither hears nor sees anything but his horses when he drives me.” The black did not wink. He was as completely at home on the box and as quiet and composed in his service as if he had driven this man for years. “He understands his duty,” finished the master, but with no outward appearance of pride. “What have you to say to me?” I hesitated no longer. “Miss Tuttle is supposed to have secretly entered the Moore house on the night you summoned us. She even says she did. I know that you have sworn to having seen no one go into that house; but notwithstanding this, haven’t you some means at your disposal for proving to the police and to the world at large that she never fired that fatal shot? Public opinion is so cruel. She will be ruined whether innocent or guilty, unless it can be very plainly shown that she did not enter the library prior to going there with the police.” “And how can you suppose me to be in a position to prove _that?_ Say that I had sat in my front window all that evening, and watched with uninterrupted assiduity the door through which so many are said to have passed between sunset and midnight—something which I did not do, as I have plainly stated on oath—how could you have expected me to see what went on in the black interior of a house whose exterior is barely discernible at night across the street?” “Then you can not aid her?” I asked. With a light bound he leaped into the carriage. As he took his seat he politely remarked: “I should be glad to, since, though not a Moore, she is near enough the family to affect its honor. But not having even seen her enter the house I can not testify in any way in regard to her. Home, Cæsar, and drive quickly. I do not thrive under these evening damps.”