“The fact is, Ellen, that you were always fond of him.” The witness continued to look down at the floor. “Yes,” she said, “too fond of him, Colonel.” The attorney seemed to draw his big body together. He stood up before his table. “Now,” he went on, “let us get all the bad features of this case together. You say other persons wished this man’s death. What makes you say that, Ellen?” “Well, Colonel,” replied the witness, “that’s pretty hard for me to answer. Everybody knows that Mr. Collander had a lot of enemies, a lot of people didn’t like him; a lot of people who had just as much reason to threaten to kill him as I had, and they must have meant it when I didn’t mean it.” “Ellen,” said the attorney, “let us try to be a little more precise about this. You say that there were persons who wished to kill the lawyer, Collander; that you thought he was in danger, and that you had this weapon cleaned and loaded so he would have some means of defending himself.” The prosecuting attorney interrupted. “Just a moment, Colonel,” he said. “The witness hasn’t said anything of the sort.” The attorney made an irrelevant gesture. “Perhaps not entirely in those words,” he said, “but it is the substance and intent of the answers. I shall permit her to reply for herself. What do you say about that, Ellen?” The witness answered at once. “That’s it,” she said, “that’s exactly it. I thought Mr. Collander was in danger of being killed, and I thought he ought to have a pistol that was loaded and would shoot. That’s why I took it to Mr. Parks.” The big attorney nodded in assent. “Now, what made you think that the decedent was in danger of his life? You must have had some reason for it?” “Well,” said the witness, “people were always coming to see Mr. Collander. I have often heard him in a quarrel with people who came in to see him. His study opens out on the porch; they sometimes came to the porch and knocked on the door.” “They didn’t always knock on the door, did they?” inquired the attorney. “Sometimes they called him?” The witness looked at the lawyer as though she did not precisely follow his question. “Yes,” she said, “sometimes they called him.” “And then they would be standing down on the ground,” continued the attorney. “The porch before the door is narrow; that would put them below Mr. Collander if he were standing in the door.” “Yes, sir,” said the witness, “the ground is lower than the porch; anybody standing on the ground would be below Mr. Collander.” Again the prosecuting attorney interrupted. “What’s that go to do with it?” he said. “Are you going to drag in the ‘mysterious stranger’ defense?” The big lawyer swung around on his feet.