"Did she say so?" asked Ferris, anxiously. "No; but I guess that is her secret. You are guilty, you know." "I swear I am not!" rejoined Ferris, vehemently. "I never saw Miss Gilmar. I did not murder her. I know nothing about the woman." "Do you know anything about the diamond necklace?" "The diamond necklace!" stammered Ferris, changing colour, and with a visible start, for this leading question evidently took him by surprise. "Yes! the necklace you pawned on the twenty-fifth of July to Aaron and Nathan." "It--it--was--was mine," replied the young man, as clearly as his consternation would let him. "It was not yours," said Gebb, sharply; "it was Miss Gilmar's. She wore it on the night of the murder, and it was taken from the corpse." "I did not take it. I did not take it." "Yet you pawned it." "Yes, I pawned it, but I swear I did not take it." "Then how did it come in your possession?" "I refuse to answer that question," said Ferris, sullenly. Gebb shrugged his shoulders. "Just as you please," he said; "but the fact of your pawning that necklace is the cause of your arrest. If you can explain----" "I explain nothing. I intend to keep my business to myself." "Then you will be in danger of the gallows." Ferris bit his lip and shuddered. "I am innocent," he said, wonderfully calm considering his position, "but I refuse to state how I became possessed of the necklace." CHAPTER XIV A SURPRISING DISCOVERY The next day Ferris was brought up before the magistrate on the charge of murdering Miss Gilmar. He looked pale and ill, and heard the evidence of his pawning of the necklace in absolute silence. When he was asked to defend himself he refused to utter a word; he declined even to engage a solicitor; so in the face of this conduct there was nothing for it but to commit him for trial. Ferris asked for bail, but his request being refused, he was taken back to prison, still silent. He might have been a stone image for all the information the law got out of him; and every one marvelled at his obstinacy, so dangerous to himself, so inexplicable to others. Gebb could not understand why he acted in this way, and risked his neck in so obstinate a manner. Certainly Ferris declared himself to be innocent; but he refused to prove the truth of his words, and preserved an impenetrable silence which at once perplexed and provoked the detective. The only reason he could conjecture for the mulish behaviour of the artist was that the evidence against him was too strong for disproval, and that he knew this to be the case.