"Is there an infusion of _cannabis indica_ to be obtained?" "I do not think there is," said the other. "I can probably enlighten you because I see now the trend of your examination. I once told Frank Merrill, many years ago, when I was very enthusiastic, that an infusion of _cannabis indica_, combined with tincture of opium and hyocine, produced certain effects." "It is inclined to sap the will power of a man or a woman who is constantly absorbing this poison in small doses?" suggested the counsel. "That is so." The counsel now switched off on a new tack. "Do you know the East of London?" "Yes, slightly." "Do you know Silvers Rents?" "Yes." "Do you ever go to Silvers Rents?" "Yes; I go there very regularly." The readiness of the reply astonished both Frank and the girl. She had been feeling more and more uncomfortable as the cross-examination continued, and had a feeling that she had in some way betrayed Jasper Cole's confidence. She had listened to the cross-examination which revealed Jasper as a scientist with something approaching amazement. She had known of the laboratory, but had associated the place with those entertaining experiments that an idle dabbler in chemistry might undertake. For a moment she doubted, and searched her mind for some occasion when he had practiced his medical knowledge. Dimly she realized that there _had_ been some such occasion, and then she remembered that it had always been Jasper Cole who had concocted the strange drafts which had so relieved the headache to which, when she was a little younger, she had been something of a martyr. Could he--She struggled hard to dismiss the thought as being unworthy of her; and now, when the object of his visits to Silvers Rents was under examination, she found her curiosity growing. "Why did you go to Silvers Rents?" There was no answer. "I will repeat my question: With what object did you go to Silvers Rents?" "I decline to answer that question," said the man in the box coolly. "I merely tell you that I went there frequently." "And you refuse to say why?" "I refuse to say why," repeated the witness. The judge on the bench made a little note. "I put it to you," said counsel, speaking impressively, "that it was in Silvers Rents that you took on another identity." "That is probably true," said the other, and the girl gasped; he was so cool, so self-possessed, so sure of himself. "I suggest to you," the counsel went on, "that in those Rents Jasper Cole became Rex Holland." There was a buzz of excitement, a sudden soft clamor of voices through which the usher's harsh demand for silence cut like a knife. "Your suggestion is an absurd one," said Jasper, without heat, "and I presume that you are going to produce evidence to support so infamous a statement." "What evidence I produce," said counsel, with asperity, "is a matter for me to decide."