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18 The commotion swelled to an uproar as Simmonds opened the door and closed it quickly behind him. Godfrey heard his voice raised in angry expostulation, and he chuckled grimly to himself as he turned to Miss Croydon.

He gazed at her with interest, searchingly, pondering how best to surprise her secret—at the bent head, with its crown of dark hair, shadowed by a little velvet hat; at the rounded arms, the graceful figure. The remarkable resolution and self-control with which she had answered the detective’s inquiries seemed to have deserted her. She was sitting huddled up in the chair, with her head in her hands, in an attitude almost of collapse. A convulsive shudder shook her from moment to moment. They had been thoughtless, Godfrey told himself, to leave her alone with the dead man—that was enough to unnerve any woman.

He paused yet a moment, looking at her,—at the slender hands, the little ear,—and he pictured to himself what her training had been, how she had been fenced away from the rough places of the world, the unpleasant things of life. Certainly, she could never have committed such a crime as this, or even connived at it.

Yet she had lied—deliberately and distinctly she had lied. She had told him that she had never before seen the dead man; she had told Simmonds just the opposite. Which was the truth? Doubtless the first; her first impulse would be to speak the truth; afterward, at leisure for a moment, she had mastered her agitation, had thought out the lie, and had uttered it with a surprising calmness.