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HE witness is yours."

As the prosecuting attorney sat down, the spectators craned their necks and eagerly leaned forward. Every one expected a merciless cross-examination, as the reputation of the young lawyer, who had been brought two hundred miles to defend the prisoner, had preceded him. And though Delos McWhorter had thus far taken no part in the proceedings, he was the most conspicuous figure in the great trial. One person alone rivaled him,—the mysterious woman who stood at the bar, charged with murder. The hush that fell upon the packed court-room as the man slowly rose to his feet resembled the awful silence with which the death sentence is awaited. As he stood silent and irresolute for a moment, the color rising to his plain, youthful face, his fingers nervously fumbling with a pencil, the spectators were conscious of a feeling of disappointment.

With almost boyish embarrassment, his eye sought that of the presiding judge; next he scanned the faces of the jury, and then, turning to the witness, in a voice at once gentle, sarcastic, and magnetic, he began:

"Mr. Slade, I will trouble you to look once more very carefully at the prisoner. Perhaps she will rise that you may see her better. You have testified that shortly before eight on the night of the murder you saw this woman enter the apartment house of which you are the janitor, and in which the body of Charlotte Ames was found. Now, I would like to have you tell the jury just what it was in the appearance of the woman you say you then saw that enables you to swear to-day that she and the prisoner are one and the same person."

The witness, fearing a trap, hesitated, and nervously eyed the lawyer. 43