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Rh there is defilement even in the shadow of the scaffold.'

Mrs. Manderson tapped her lips with the envelope without quite concealing a smile. 'You didn't think of another possibility, I suppose, Mr. Trent,' she said.

'No.' He looked puzzled.

'I mean the possibility of your having been wrong about Mr. Marlowe as well as about me. No, no; you needn't tell me that the chain of evidence is complete. I know it is. But evidence of what? Of Mr. Marlowe having impersonated my husband that night, and having escaped by way of my window, and built up an alibi. I have read your dispatch again and again, Mr. Trent, and I don't see that those things can be doubted.'

Trent gazed at her with narrowed eyes. He said nothing to fill the brief pause that followed. Mrs. Manderson smoothed her skirt with a preoccupied air, as one collecting her ideas.

'I did not make any use of the facts found out by you,' she slowly said at last, 'because it seemed to me very likely that they would be fatal to Mr. Marlowe.'