The answer Mr. Travis gave was certainly unexpected.

“It was after I came out that I saw them,” he stammered.  “There were two ladies, one tall and one very young and slight.  The older lady was stepping toward the front, the other entering from behind.  As I looked, the younger made a dash and ran by the first lady.  Then——­”

“Proceed, Mr. Travis.  Your emotion is very natural; but it is imperative that we hear all you have to tell us.  She ran by the older lady, and then?”

Still silence.  The Englishman appeared to be looking at Coroner Price, who in speaking emerged from behind the pedestal; but it is doubtful if he saw him.  A tear was in his eye—­a tear!

Seeing it, Mr. Gryce felt a movement of compassion, and thinking to help him, said kindly enough: 

“Was it so very dreadful?”

The answer came with great simplicity: 

“Yes.  One minute she was all life and gaiety; the next she was lying outstretched on the hard floor.”

“And you?”

Again that look of ingenuous surprise.

“I don’t remember about myself,” he said.  “I was thinking too much about her.  I never saw anyone killed before.”

“Killed?  Why do you say killed?  You say you saw her fall, but how did you know she was killed?”

“I saw the arrow in her breast.  As she fell backward, I saw the arrow.”

As he uttered these words, the three men watching him perceived the sweat start out on his forehead, and his eyes take on a glassy stare.  It was as if he were again in gaze upon that image of youthful loveliness falling to the ground with the arrow of death in her heart.  The effect was strangely moving.  To see this event reflected as it were in horror from this man’s consciousness made it appear more real and much more impressive than when contemplated directly.  Why?  Had remorse given it its poignancy?  Had it been his own hand which had directed this arrow from behind the pedestal?  If not, why this ghastly display of an emotion so far beyond what might be expected from the most sentimental of onlookers?

In an endeavor to clear the situation, the Coroner intervened with the following question: 

“Have you ever seen a shot made by a bow and arrow before, Mr. Travis?  Archery-practice, I mean.  Or—­well, the shooting of wild animals in India, Africa or elsewhere?”

“Oh, yes.  I come from a country where the bow and arrow are used.  But I never shoot.  I can only speak of what I have seen others do.”

“That is sufficient.  You ought to be able to tell, then, from what direction this arrow came.”

“It—­it must have come from this side of the gallery.  Not from this section, as you call it, but from some one of the other open places along here.”

“Why not from this one?”

“Because there was nobody here but me,” was the simple and seemingly ingenuous answer.