Now that she had made up her mind to speak, the words came in a rush, as though she could not talk fast enough, as though she were feverish to get the ordeal over with. “When I left you to go home, I had to pass his—Alan’s—door, as you know. Just as I reached it, I heard voices inside—not loud, or I suppose they would have been stopped by some one, for the whole stage was supposed to be quiet while the act was on. But there was rather a noisy scene going on then—the bandits quarreling among themselves over the wine, you remember—and, anyway, the voices inside the dressing room could only be heard by some one who was standing very close to the door. I stopped for a moment, instinctively at first, and then—I heard my sister’s voice, panting and excited!” All this tallied with Wrenn’s story. “Could you hear what she said?” asked Barrison. “Only a word or two.” “What words?” She flashed him a glance of deep appeal, then went hurriedly on: “I heard her say ‘Coward and cad,’ and—and ‘You ought to be shot, and you know it!’ That’s all.” All! It was quite enough. Barrison looked at her with faint pity, though he had felt at first that she was not sincere. She had a way of disarming him by unexpected evidence of true feeling just when he expected her to play-act. He could see that she was finding this pretty hard to tell. “What did you do, Miss Legaye?” “Do—I? Nothing. What was there for me to do? I went home.” “Didn’t it occur to you to try to see your sister, to interfere in what seemed to be such a very violent quarrel?” She shook her head vehemently. “No, it did not. Why should it? My sister and I had nothing in common. I had not seen her for many years; I—I did not want to see her. For the rest—I knew that she hated Alan Mortimer, and if she was talking to him at all, it seemed quite natural that she should talk to him like that.” “You did not feel afraid, then—did not look on those chance phrases you heard as—well, a threat?” She shuddered. “Oh, no; how could I? I thought she was just angry and excited. She always had a frightful temper. How could I guess that she had—anything else—in her mind?” “So you went straight home, without waiting?” “Yes.” She bent her head, and added, in a low, troubled tone: “You will think me very selfish, very much a coward, Mr. Barrison, but—those angry voices made me want to get away as fast as possible. I hate scenes and quarrels and unpleasantness of all kinds. I was thankful to get out of the theater, and to know that I had not had to meet Marita, especially in the mood she was in then.” “I see,” said Barrison, not without sympathy. “And is that all—really and absolutely all—that you know about the matter?” Kitty hesitated, and then she lifted her head and faced him bravely. “No,” she said clearly, “it is not all. If you will wait a moment, I have something I ought to show you.”