"Well, I was on the porch same as the other time. Mrs. Doherty'd come over for some bacon--guess I said that. I wrapped some for her, then I remembered I wanted to show her an embroidery piece I was doing. I'd already taken my things out to the porch before she came. We went out there, were setting there when C'lista drove up to the house alone, walked right by us, not a word except to ask kind of sharp where her mother was. Ann had spoken--you know, 'Hello, Callie!' or something like that, but I don't believe C'lista answered her. Anyhow I told her, I said I thought her mother was upstairs somewhere, and she went on in. Slamming the door." The defense can't object, Edith thought, because those are facts. That was Callista, no use denying it: the often needlessly cruel abruptness, indifference to social necessities, inability to suffer a fool with patience. On that black evening Maud Welsh and Ann had not even been fools, just harmless little people acting as usual at a time when Callista was burning, a tigress with an arrow festering in her side. And today, in smouldering cherished resentment, Maud Welsh was not harmless. "Did you see Callista Blake again that evening?" "No, went to my room before she left. I did hear her, talking to her mother upstairs in a wild sort of way." "Wild? Do you mean quarreling? Loud?" "No, sir, I give C'lista credit, she was never one to raise her voice, anyhow I wasn't eavesdropping, only Mrs. Chalmers' bedroom happens to be right over the porch where I was. Ann had gone home then and I couldn't help but hear her crying, Mrs. Chalmers I mean, and the stuff C'lista was saying about forgive me this my virtue." "Miss Welsh--" "Which didn't make any sense, besides being no sort of way to talk to her mother, only I wasn't eavesdropping." Edith winced at the courtroom laughter. At any rate the nervous uproar, quickly subdued by Judge Mann's gavel, was probably directed more at Maud Welsh than Callista. "Miss Welsh, we established that you were at the Chalmers house on August 7th, ten days before Mrs. Doherty's death. Does any particular event fix that date in your memory?" "Picnic. The Chalmerses gave a picnic that afternoon." "Informal?" "Ayah. We do it three-four times every summer. Mostly friends of Herb's from the college, but that one was more for Shanesville folks. Hot dogs, hamburgers and like that. Croquet, pitching horse-shoes, badminton. Real informal." "Do you recall who was present, August 7th?" "Yes. Mrs. Phelps Jason--she's our nearest neighbor except the Dohertys. Mr. and Mrs. Wayne of Shanesville and their two kids Billy and Doris. Billy's nine, Doris going-on-twelve. Mr. and Mrs. Doherty of course. Mr. Judd drove out from Winchester. And C'lista did too." "What time was the picnic?" "From two in the afternoon to about five, five-thirty." "Do you know when Callista Blake arrived?" "Early, near two I think." "When did she leave?"