bustle about us, and of the insensibility into which you had fallen, to tuck these miserable gloves into the bag I saw lying on the floor at your side. I do not ask your pardon. My whole future life shall be devoted to winning that; I simply wish to state a fact.” 

 “Very good!” It was the inspector who spoke; I could not have uttered a word to save my life. “Perhaps you will now feel that you owe it to this young lady to add how you came to have these gloves in your possession?” 

 “Mrs. Fairbrother handed them to me.” 

 “Handed them to you?” 

 “Yes, I hardly know why myself. She asked me to take care of them for her. I know that this must strike you as a very peculiar statement. It was my realization of the unfavorable effect it could not fail to produce upon those who beard it, which made me dread any interrogation on the subject. But I assure you it was as I say. She put the gloves into my hand while I was talking to her, saying they incommoded her.” 

 “And you?” 

 “Well, I held them for a few minutes, then I put them in my pocket, but quite automatically, and without thinking very much about it. She was a woman accustomed to have her own way. People seldom questioned it, I judge.” 

 Here the tension about my throat relaxed, and I opened my lips to speak. But the inspector, with a glance of some authority, forestalled me. 

 “Were the gloves open or rolled up when she offered them to you?” 

 “They were rolled up.” 

 “Did you see her take them off?” 

 “Assuredly.” 

 “And roll them up?” 

 “Certainly.” 

 “After which she passed them over to you?” 

 “Not immediately. She let them lie in her lap for a while.” 

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