But the sound of the little vial crashing upon the hearthstone whither he had flung it broke the quiet and startled the District Attorney forward in a doubt bordering upon terror.

“What is that?” he asked, pointing to the fragments that had just missed the ash heap.

“It contained oblivion,” was the answer given him in steady tones.  “Do you wonder that I sought it?  Nothing can save me.  I have two minutes before me.  I would dedicate them to her.”

His head fell forward on his hands.  The clock on the mantel struck.  Could it be that when the second hand had circled its small disc twice—­

This was the thought of the District Attorney, but not of the Chief Inspector.  He had advanced to the desk where Mr. Roberts was still sitting, and remarked with a gravity exceeding any he had hitherto shown: 

“Mr. Roberts, I have a great disappointment for you.  This little vial of yours which held poison yesterday contained nothing but a few drops of harmless liquid to-day.  The change was made in the night, by one suspicious of your intention.  You will have to face the full consequences of your crime.”

Carleton Roberts’ arms collapsed and his face fell forward upon them, and they heard a groan.  Then in the short silence which followed, another and a very different sound broke upon their ears.  Seven clear calls from the cuckoo-clock rang out from the room beyond, followed by a woman’s smothered cry.

It was the one ironic touch the situation had lacked.  It pierced the heart of Carleton Roberts and started him in anguish to his feet.

“O God!” he cried, “that I should have let that thing of evil shriek out the wicked hours from day to day, only to torment her now with old remembrances!  Why did I not crush it to atoms long ago?  Why did I leave it hanging on my wall——­”

With a dash he was in the hall.  In another instant he was at the door of his bedroom, followed by the two officials crowding closely up behind him.

Would they find her there?  Yes; where else should she be, she whom this call from the past might almost draw from the grave!  She was there, but not in the spot where they had expected to see her, nor in that state of collapse of which her former weakness had given promise.  Apart from Mr. Gryce, with her form drawn up to its full height she stood, with her finger pointing not at the cuckoo-clock as would seem most natural, but at a small newspaper print of the dead girl’s face pinned up on another wall.

“Why is that here?” she cried in a passionate inquiry which ignored every other presence than that of him who must heed and answer her.  “Carleton, Carleton, why have you pinned that young girl’s face up opposite your bed where you can see it on waking, where it can look at you and you at it—­Or——­” here checked by a sudden thought she broke off, and her tone changed to one of doubt, “perhaps you did not put it there yourself?  Perhaps its presence on your wall is a trick of the police to startle you into betrayal.  Was it?  Was it?”