Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/266

 "Which were, in fact, that he had seen you thrown out of the hotel where he worked, to use your own words?"

"Yes."

"This, then, was what he recalled to you?"

"Yes."

"Upon his rediscovery of you, therefore, he looked upon you as a person who had been undergoing unfortunate experiences, to say the least."

"I object!" shouted Max.

"Sustained."

"He mentioned his wife to you almost immediately, you said?" continued Calvin.

"He told me that he was married, and he told me, very happily, about his daughter," replied Joan Daisy, unwary in two words.

"But he did not speak happily of his wife?" Calvin caught her at once.

"He told me that he and his wife were separated."

"Whereupon he went with you to the building in which you lived and engaged a room in the same entry, immediately below your room?"

"I object!" cried Max, in outrage, "and resent the implication of Mr. Clarke."

"The State," retorted Calvin impersonally and very white and with his lips bloodless, "at present offers no implication except as the facts, as they are brought out, present their inescapable conclusion."

"Your honor," appealed Max, pulling a large, gold watch from his pocket, "it is only a little before the usual hour for adjournment. Miss Royle has had a most wearing day," he said with an emotional quaver and glanced at Joan Daisy in signal for her to droop.

She failed to see it; she sat straight, confronting Calvin Clarke and defying him, and so the judge saw her, when he turned from Max to examine her.