“N-nonsense, my dear.  I’m done up completely.  Delighted to see you and all that, but—­Won’t you go home?” His appealing eyes passed to Whitford.  “Can’t you take her away?”

“No, I won’t go home—­and he can’t take me away.”  Her resolution was hard as steel.  It seemed to crowd inexorably upon the shivering wretch in the frogged gown.  “What is it you’re so afraid to tell me, Clarendon?”

He quailed at her thrust.  “What—­what do you mean?”

She knew now, beyond any question or doubt, that he had been present when “Slim” Jim Collins had been killed.  He had seen a man’s life snuffed out, was still trembling for fear he might be called in as a party to the crime.

“You’d better tell me before it’s too late.  How did you and Clay Lindsay come to go to that den?”

“We went out to—­to see the town.”

“But why to that place?  Are you in the habit of going there?”

He shuddered.  “Never was there before.  I had a card.  Some one gave it to me.  So we went in for a few minutes—­to see what it was like.  The police raided the place.”  He dropped his sentences reluctantly, as though they were being forced from him in pain.

“Well?”

“Everybody tried to escape.  The lights went out.  I found a back door and got away.  Then I came home.”

“What about Clay?”

Bromfield told the truth.  “I didn’t see him after the lights went out, except for a moment.  He was running at the man with the gun.”

“You saw the gun?”

He nodded, moistened his dry lips with the tip of his tongue.

“And the—­the shooting?  Did you see that?”

Twice the words he tried to say faded on his lips.  At last he managed a “No.”

“Why not?”

“I—­found a door and escaped.”

“You must have heard shooting.”

“I heard shots as I ran down the stairs.  This morning I read that—­that a man was—­” He swallowed down a lump and left the sentence unfinished.

“Then you know that Clay is accused of killing this man, and that the police are looking for you because you were with him.”

“Yes.”  His answer was a dry whisper.

“Did you see this man Collins in the room?”

“No.  I shouldn’t know him if I saw him.”

“But you heard shots.  You’re sure of that!” cried Beatrice.

“Y-yes.”

The girl turned triumphantly to her father.  “He saw the gun and he heard shots.  That proves self-defense at the worst.  They were shooting at Clay when he struck with the chair—­if he did.  Clarendon’s testimony will show that.”

“My testimony!” screamed Bromfield.  “My God, do you think I’m going to—­to—­go into court?  They would claim I—­I was—­”

She waited, but he did not finish.  “Clay’s life may depend upon it, and of course you’ll tell the truth,” she said quietly.

“Maybe I didn’t hear shots,” he hedged.  “Maybe it was furniture falling.  There was a lot of noise of people stamping and fighting.”