Page:Marsh--The seen and the unseen.djvu/54

30 expression on the woman's face, and at the suggestion of complete unconsciousness on the face of the man. She looks as though she could, and would, do anything. He seems to be wholly innocent, even of the knowledge of her presence there."

"This photograph is, in some respects, not unlike one of Mr. Dodsworth's."

"Which makes the thing the more remarkable. But I want you particularly to observe that the slate which Solly holds is blank. Now, I ask all of you, whether at any moment during the time I was exposing the plates that slate was blank."

"Certainly not," declared Chief Warder Murray.

The others, by their silence, acquiesced in Mr. Murray's declaration.

"If I could trust my eyes, during the whole time I was exposing the plates, the words 'George Solly' were there, ostentatiously there, upon that slate. You see that in that print the slate is blank. Now look at this—this is the result of the third exposure!"

In the fresh photograph which the doctor produced a curious change had taken place. The blank upon the slate was occupied; a name was written on it from corner to corner. It seemed that it had just been written by the woman, because the handwriting was feminine; and with her face towards the camera, still kneeling on the ground before the man George Solly, she pointed at it with a sort of defiant rage, as though she gloried in the fact of having written it, and dared them to deny the suggestion it conveyed.

"Now, what do you think of that?" cried Dr.