He saw Henshaw flush and dart a glance of hate at him.  It was plain he had misinterpreted the reply.  But the exhibition was only momentary.

“Admitting in the meantime your right to interfere,” Henshaw said, now with perfect coolness, “allow me to tell you that you are taking a very foolish course.”

“I shall be glad to know how.”

“The reason is, that if you have any regard, as you suggest, for Miss Morriston, you are going the right way to do her a terrible injury.”

Gifford rose and stood by the fire-place.  “To come to the point at once without further preliminary fencing,” he said quietly, “you mean, I take it, that I am forcing you to denounce her as being guilty of your brother’s death.”

For an instant Henshaw seemed taken aback by the other’s directness.  “There can be no doubt, holding the evidence I do, that she was guilty of it,” he retorted uncompromisingly.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Henshaw,” Gifford objected with decision, “there can be, and is, a very great deal more than a doubt of it.”

Henshaw shot a searching glance at the man who spoke so confidently, as though trying to probe what, if anything, was behind his words.

“Perhaps you know then,” he returned with his sneering smile, “how otherwise, if the lady had no hand in it, my brother came by his death?”

“I do,” was the quiet answer.

“Then,” still the smile of sneering incredulity, “it is clearly your duty to make it known.”

“Clearly,” Gifford assented in a calm tone.  “That is why I asked you to come here this afternoon.”

Henshaw was looking at him with a sort of malicious curiosity.  In spite of his smartness he seemed at a loss to divine what the other was driving at, unless it were a well-studied line of bluff.  But that Gifford could have, apart from what Edith Morriston might have told him, any intimate knowledge of the tragedy was inconceivable.

“I shall be glad to hear what you have to say, Mr. Gifford,” he responded, in perhaps much greater curiosity than he chose to show.

“Then I have to inform you positively,” Gifford answered, “that your brother’s fatal wound was the result of a pure accident.”

Coming from Edith Morriston’s champion, there was nothing surprising in that assertion.  Certainly if that were the other’s strong suit he could easily beat it.  It was therefore in a tone of confidence and relief that he demanded, “You can prove it?”

“I can.”

“By Miss Morriston’s testimony?”

“Not at all.  By my own.”

“Your own?” Henshaw’s question was put with a curling lip.

“My own,” Gifford repeated steadfastly.

“May one ask what you mean by that?”

Henshaw’s contemptuous incredulity was by no means diminished even by the other’s confident attitude.

Gifford gave a short laugh.  “Naturally you do not take my meaning.  Obviously you think I am not a competent witness, that I know nothing except by hearsay.  You are, extraordinary as it may seem, quite wrong.  My testimony would be of nothing but what I myself saw and heard.”