That---- "Buck up!" whispered Selwood, in the blunt language of irreverent, yet good-natured, youth. "He's coming!" Peggie looked up to see Barthorpe staring at her through the iron bars. He was not over good to look at. He had a two days' beard on his face; his linen was not fresh; his clothes were put on untidily; he stood with his hands in his pockets lumpishly--the change wrought by incarceration, even of that comparative sort, was great. He looked both sulky and sheepish; he gave Selwood no more than a curt nod; his first response to his cousin was of the nature of a growl. "Hanged if I know what you've come for!" he said. "What's the good of it? You may mean well, but----" "Oh, Barthorpe, how can you!" exclaimed Peggie. "Of course we've come! Do you think it possible we shouldn't come? You know very well we all believe you innocent." "Who's all?" demanded Barthorpe, half-sneeringly. "Yourself, perhaps, and the parlour-maid!" "All of us," said Selwood, thinking it was time a man spoke. "Cox-Raythwaite, Mr. Tertius, myself. That's a fact, anyhow, so you'd better grasp it." Barthorpe straightened himself and looked keenly at Selwood. Then he spoke naturally and simply. "I'm much obliged to you, Selwood," he said. "I'd shake hands with you if I could. I'm obliged to the others, too--especially to old Tertius--I've wronged him, no doubt. But"--here his face grew dark and savage--"if you only knew how I was tricked by that devil! Is he caught?--that's what I want to know." "No!" answered Selwood. "But never mind him--we've come here to see what we can do for you. That's the important thing." "What can anybody do?" said Barthorpe, with a mirthless laugh. "You know all the evidence. It's enough--they'll hang me on it!" "Barthorpe, you mustn't!" expostulated Peggie. "That's not the way to treat things. Tell him," she went on, turning to Selwood, "tell him all that Professor Cox-Raythwaite said the other night." Selwood repeated the gist of the Professor's arguments and suggestions, and Barthorpe began to show some interest. But at the end he shook his head. "I don't know that there's anything more that I can tell," he said. "Whatever anybody may think, I told the entire truth about myself and this affair in that statement before the magistrate. Of course, you know they didn't want me to say a word--my legal advisers, I mean. They were dead against it. But you see, I was resolved on it--I wanted it to get in the papers. I told everything in that. I tried to put it as plainly as I could. No--I've told the main facts." "But aren't there any little facts, Barthorpe?" asked Peggie. "Can't you think of any small thing--was there nothing that would give--I don't know how to put it." "Anything that you can think of that would give a clue?" suggested Selwood. "Was there nothing you noticed--was there anything----" Barthorpe appeared to be thinking; then to be hesitating--finally, he looked at Selwood a little shamefacedly.