sensitive to impressions in such cases, I admit," Demarest returned, coolly. If he meant any subtlety of allusion to his hearer, it failed wholly to pierce the armor of complacency.

"The stolen goods were found in her locker," Gilder declared in a tone of finality. "Some of them, I have been given to understand, were actually in the pocket of her coat."

"Well," the attorney said with a smile, "that sort of thing makes good-enough circumstantial evidence, and without circumstantial evidence there would be few convictions for crime. Yet, as a lawyer, I'm free to admit that circumstantial evidence alone is never quite safe as proof of guilt. Naturally, she says some one else must have put the stolen goods there. As a matter of exact reasoning, that is quite within the measure of possibility. That sort of thing has been done countless times."

Gilder sniffed indignantly.

"And for what reason?" he demanded. "It's too absurd to think about."

"In similar cases," the lawyer answered, "those actually guilty of the thefts have thus sought to throw suspicion on the innocent in order to avoid it on themselves when the pursuit got too hot on their trail. Sometimes, too, such evidence has been manufactured merely to satisfy a spite against the one unjustly accused."

"It's too absurd to think about," Gilder repeated, impatiently. "The judge and the jury found no fault with the evidence."

Demarest realized that this advocacy in behalf of the girl was hardly fitting on the part of the legal representative of the store she was supposed to have robbed, so he abruptly changed his line of argument.

"She says that her record of five years in your employ ought to count something in her favor."

Gilder, however, was not disposed to be sympathetic as to a matter so flagrantly opposed to his interests.

"A court of justice has decreed her guilty," he asserted once again, in his ponderous manner. His emphasis indicated that there the affair ended.

Demarest smiled cynically as he strode to and fro.

"Nowadays," he shot out, "we don't call them courts of justice: we call them courts of law."

Gilder yielded only a rather dubious smile over the quip. This much he felt that he could afford, since those 

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