“Ah!” Dalton cried.  “Certainly.  I understand.  This is most important.  Pray go on.”

With a few interruptions from him, full of tact and intelligence, she told the whole story, or as much of it as was required.  She did not have to mention Alice’s name, or the opera-glass; though the clever young man said to himself, “She is either growing very far-sighted, or she was scouring the heavens with a field-glass that night—­perhaps looking for comets.”

He rang his bell and gave a message to an usher who appeared.  “I will not ask you to wait long,” he said, and turned the conversation upon the weather and social prospects for the season.  In a few minutes the door opened, and Sleeny was brought into the room by an officer.

“Was this the man you saw, Mrs. Belding?” asked Dalton.

“Not the slightest resemblance.  This one is much taller, and entirely different in color.”

“That will do”; and Sleeny and the officer went out.

“Now may I ask you to do a very disagreeable thing?  To go with me to the Morgue and see the remains of what I am now sure is the real criminal?” Dalton asked.

“Oh, mercy!  I would rather not.  Is it necessary?”

“Not positively necessary, but it will enable me to dismiss the burglary case absolutely against young Sleeny.”

“Very well.  I’ll go.  I am so glad,” she said to herself, “that I did not bring Alice.”

They went in her carriage to the Morgue.  Dalton said, “I want to make it as easy as I can for you.  Please wait a moment in your carriage.”  He went in and arranged that the face of Offitt, which was horrible, should be turned away as much as possible; the head, and shoulders and back being left exposed, and the hat placed on the head.  He then brought Mrs. Belding in.

“That is the man,” she said, promptly, “or at least some one exactly like him.”

“Thank you,” he said, reconducting her to her carriage.  “The first charge against Sleeny will be dismissed, though of course he must be held for this homicide.”

A few weeks later Sleeny was tried for the killing of Offitt, on which occasion most of the facts of this history were given in evidence.  Mrs. Belding had at last to tell what she knew in open court, and she had an evil quarter of an hour in the hands of Mr. Dalton, who seemed always on the point of asking some question which would bring her opera-glass into the newspapers; but he never proceeded to that extremity, and she came away with a better opinion of the profession than she had ever before entertained.  “I suppose leading germans humanizes even a lawyer somewhat,” she observed, philosophically.