now drooping in childish impotence.  She glanced at him fleetly as he entered, but said nothing.  Robbed of the pretensions of pride, stripped of feminine subterfuge, she was appalling.  He involuntarily recalled the Essie who had swept him into a riot of emotion—­a vivid and palpitating creature radiating the exuberance of careless health and youth.  She could not, he calculated, be beyond thirty-seven now.  He abruptly ceased his speculation, turned from her, with a feeling of impropriety.  Stephen Jannan said shortly: 

“Al Schimpf will be here.  It seemed to me he was the best man to retain.  It’s obvious that I can’t defend her.  You will, of course, require everything possible done.”  Essie Scofield shivered.  “I don’t want to go into court,” she articulated, “and answer all the dreadful questions.”  There was a stir without, and a hugely fat man in a black cape fastened with a silver chain and velvet collar entered.  Al Schimpf’s face was so burdened with rolling chins that he disregarded the customary fashion of whiskers, but a grizzled moustache lay above his well-formed lips, and an imperial divided his heavy, aggressive chin.  He was, evidently, fully informed of the case before him; for, after saluting Jannan and Jasper Penny, he, seated himself directly before Essie Scofield, fastening upon her an unwavering, glacial gaze.

“Now, pay attention,” he proceeded at once.

“I’ll go over a few facts—­this Daniel Culser, you were in love with him; no length you wouldn’t go, lost your senses completely; and he—­all he cared about was the money he could wring out of you.  As soon as you were paid the sums that Mr. Penny allowed you, this Culser got it from you; he took every cent and wanted more.  Said he would leave you unless you got hold of something really worth while.  Then, of course, you carried on, promised to get him more and more; said you could force a fortune from Mr. Penny, anything to keep the young man.  Hey?” he demanded suddenly.

The woman looked up with a haggard wonder, an irrepressible shudder; her hands raised and fell, and she nodded dumbly.

“Then, while Culser was in the house, Mr. Penny unexpectedly turned up and said—­perhaps before Daniel himself—­that you could expect nothing more, and made it plain that he was not to be intimidated.  Daniel Culser was for leaving you, didn’t intend to hang around for a bloody little quarterly; and, when you realized that he meant, or you thought he meant, what he said, you went crazy and shot him....  What!” He got no response from her now; she cowered away from him, hiding behind an updrawn shoulder, a fold of the shawl.  “But listen to this,” Al Schimpf shot at her, leaning forward, “here’s what happened, and you must remember every fact: