Either she had reason to fear his knowledge, or I was fanciful.
With an endeavor to shake off these shadows of suspicion, I chanced to look at Parmalee. To my disgust, he was quite evidently gloating over the disclosures being made by the witness. I felt my anger rise, and I determined then and there that if suspicion of guilt or complicity should by any chance unjustly light on that brave and lovely girl, I would make the effort of my life to clear her from it.
"You did not come down again," the coroner went on pointedly, "to ask your uncle if he had changed his will?"
"No, I did not," she replied, with such a ring of truth in her scornful voice, that my confidence returned, and I truly believed her.
"Then you were not in your uncle's office last evening at all?"
"I was not."
"Nor through the day?"
She reflected a moment. "No, nor through the day. It chanced I had no occasion to go in there yesterday at all."
At these assertions of Miss Lloyd's, the Frenchman, Louis, looked greatly disturbed. He tried very hard to conceal his agitation, but it was not at all difficult to read on his face an endeavor to look undisturbed at what he heard.
I hadn't a doubt, myself, that the man either knew something that would incriminate Miss Lloyd, or that they two had a mutual knowledge of some fact as yet concealed.
I was surprised that no one else seemed to notice this, but the attention of every one in the room was concentrated on the coroner and the witness, and so Louis's behavior passed unnoticed.
At this juncture, Mr. Lemuel Porter spoke with some dignity.
"It would seem," he said, "that this concludes Miss Lloyd's evidence in the matter. She has carried the narrative up to the point where Mr. Joseph Crawford went out of his house after dinner. As she herself retired to her room before his return, and did not again leave her room until this morning, she can have nothing further to tell us bearing on the tragedy. And as it is doubtless a most painful experience for her, I trust, Mr.
Coroner, that you will excuse her from further questioning."
"But wait a minute," Parmalee began, when Mr Hamilton interrupted him - "Mr. Porter is quite right," he said; "there is no reason why Miss Lloyd should be further troubled in this matter. I feel free to advise her dismissal from the witness stand, because of my acquaintance and friendship with this household. Our coroner and most of our jurors are strangers to Miss Lloyd, and perhaps cannot appreciate as I do the terrible strain this experience means to her."
"You're right Hamilton," said Mr. Philip Crawford; "I was remiss not to think of it myself. Mr. Monroe, this is not a formal inquest, and in the interest of kindness and humanity, I ask you to excuse Miss Lloyd from further questioning for the present."
I was surprised at the requests of these elderly gentlemen, for though it seemed to me that Miss Lloyd's testimony was complete, yet it also seemed as if Gregory Hall were the one to show anxiety that she be spared further annoyance.
However, Florence Lloyd spoke for herself.
"I am quite willing to answer any further questions," she said;
"I have answered all you have asked, and I have told you frankly the truth. Though it is far from pleasant to have my individual affairs thus brought to notice, I am quite ready to do anything to forward the cause of justice or to aid in any way the discovery of my uncle's murderer."
"Thank you," said Mr. Monroe; " I quite appreciate the extreme unpleasantness of your position. But, Miss Lloyd, there are a few more questions I must ask you. Pardon me if I repeat myself, but I ask you once more if you did not come down to your uncle's office last evening after he had returned from his call on Mr.
Randolph."
As I watched Florence Lloyd I saw that her eyes did not turn toward the coroner, or toward her fiance, or toward the jury, but she looked straight at Louis, the valet, as she replied in clear tones "I did not."
