“Is this a street bag?” inquired Mr. Monroe, looking with a masculine helplessness at the gilt bauble.

“Of course it is,” said Mrs. Pierce, who now that she had found her voice, seemed anxious to talk.  “Nobody ever carries a bag like that in the house,—­in the evening.”

“But,” began Parmalee, “such a thing might have occurred, if Miss Lloyd had had occasion to go to her uncle’s office with, we will say, papers or notes.”

Personally I thought this an absurd suggestion, but Mr. Monroe seemed to take it seriously.

“That might be,” he said, and I could see that momentarily the suspicions against Florence Lloyd were growing in force and were taking definite shape.

As I noted the expressions, on the various faces, I observed that only Mr. Philip Crawford and the jurors Hamilton and Porter seemed entirely in sympathy with the girl.  The coroner, Parmalee, and even the lawyer, Randolph, seemed to be willing, almost eager for her to incriminate herself.

Gregory Hall, who should have been the most sympathetic of all, seemed the most coldly indifferent, and as for Mrs. Pierce, her actions were so erratic and uncertain, no one could tell what she thought.

“You are quite positive it is not your bag?” repeated the coroner once more.

“I’m positive it is not mine,” returned Miss Lloyd, without undue emphasis, but with an air of dismissing the subject.

“Is your maid present?” asked the coroner.  “Let her be summoned.”

Elsa came forward, the pretty, timid young girl, of German effects, whom I had already noticed.

“Have you ever seen this bag before?” asked the coroner, holding it up before her.

“Yes, sir.”

“When?”

“This morning, sir.  Lambert showed it to me, sir.  He said he found it in Mr. Crawford’s office.”

The girl was very pale, and trembled pitiably.  She seemed afraid of the coroner, of Lambert, of Miss Lloyd, and of the jury.  It might have been merely the unreasonable fear of an ignorant mind, but it had the appearance of some more definite apprehension.

Especially did she seem afraid of the man, Louis.  Though perhaps the distressed glances she cast at him were not so much those of fear as of anxiety.

The coroner spoke kindly to her, and really seemed to take more notice of her embarrassment, and make more effort to put her at her ease than he had done with Miss Lloyd.

“Is it Miss Lloyd’s bag?”

“I don’t think so, sir.”

“Don’t you know?  As her personal maid, you must be acquainted with her belongings.”

“Yes, sir.  No, it isn’t hers, sir.”

But as this statement was made after a swift but noticeable glance of inquiry at her mistress, a slight distrust of Elsa formed in my own mind, and probably in the minds of others.

“She has one like this, has she not?”

“She—­she did have, sir; but she—­she gave it to me.”