“Is it not a somewhat expensive trinket to turn over to your maid?” “No; they are not real gold. At least, I mean mine was not. It was gilt over silver, and cost only about twelve or fourteen dollars when new.” “What did you usually carry in it?” “What every woman carries in such a bag. Handkerchief, some small change, perhaps a vanity-box, gloves, tickets--whatever would be needed on an afternoon's calling or shopping tour.” “Miss Lloyd, you have enumerated almost exactly the articles in this bag.” “Then that is a coincidence, for it is not my bag.” The girl was entirely self-possessed again, and even a little aggressive. I admit that I did not believe her statements. Of course I could not be sure she was telling untruths, but her sudden embarrassment at the first sight of the bag, and the way in which she regained her self-possession, made me doubt her clear conscience in the matter. Parmalee, who had come over and sat beside me, whispered: “Striking coincidence, isn't it?” Although his sarcasm voiced my own thoughts, yet it irritated me horribly to hear him say it. “But ninety-nine women out of a hundred would experience the same coincidence,” I returned. “But the other ninety-eight weren't in the house last night, and she was.” At this moment Mrs. Pierce, whom I had suspected of feeling far deeper interest than she had so far shown, volunteered a remark. “Of course that isn't Florence's bag,” she said; “if Florence had gone to her uncle's office last evening, she would have been wearing her dinner gown, and certainly would not carry a street bag.” “Is this a street bag?” inquired Mr. Monroe, looking with a masculine helplessness at the gilt bauble. “Of course it is,” said Mrs. Pierce, who now that she had found her voice, seemed anxious to talk. “Nobody ever carries a bag like that in the house,--in the evening.” “But,” began Parmalee, “such a thing might have occurred, if Miss Lloyd had had occasion to go to her uncle's office with, we will say, papers or notes.” Personally I thought this an absurd suggestion, but Mr. Monroe seemed to take it seriously. “That might be,” he said, and I could see that momentarily the suspicions against Florence Lloyd were growing in force and were taking definite shape. As I noted the expressions, on the various faces, I observed that only Mr. Philip Crawford and the jurors Hamilton and Porter seemed entirely in sympathy with the girl. The coroner, Parmalee, and even the lawyer, Randolph, seemed to be willing, almost eager for her to incriminate herself. Gregory Hall, who should have been the most sympathetic of all, seemed the most coldly indifferent, and as for Mrs. Pierce, her actions were so erratic and uncertain, no one could tell what she thought. “You are quite positive it is not your bag?” repeated the coroner once more. “I'm positive it is not mine,” returned Miss Lloyd, without undue emphasis, but with an air of dismissing the subject.