“You have sworn to answer the questions put,” was the uncompromising rejoinder.  “How did you become acquainted with Captain Thorn?”

“I met him at Swainson,” doggedly answered Afy.  “I went over there one day, just for a spree, and I met him at a pastrycook’s.”

“And he fell in love with your pretty face?” said Lawyer Ball, taking up the examination.

In the incense to her vanity, Afy nearly forgot her scruples.  “Yes, he did,” she answered, casting a smile of general satisfaction round upon the court.

“And got out of you where you lived, and entered upon his courting, riding over nearly every evening to see you?”

“Well,” acknowledged Afy, “there was no harm in it.”

“Oh, certainly not!” acquiesced the lawyer, in a pleasant, free tone, to put the witness at her ease.  “Rather good, I should say:  I wish I had had the like luck.  Did you know him at the time by the name of Levison?”

“No!  He said he was Captain Thorn, and I thought he was.”

“Did you know where he lived?”

“No!  He never said that.  I thought he was stopping temporarily at Swainson.”

“And—­dear me! what a sweet bonnet that is you have on!”

Afy, whose egregious vanity was her besetting sin—­who possessed enough of it for any ten pretty women going—­cast a glance out of the corners of her eyes at the admired bonnet, and became Mr. Ball’s entirely.

“And how long was it, after your first meeting with him, before you discovered his real name?”

“Not for a long time—­several months.”

“Subsequent to the murder, I presume?”

“Oh, yes!”

Mr. Ball’s eyes gave a twinkle, and the unconscious Afy surreptitiously smoothed, with one finger, the glossy parting of her hair.

“Besides Captain Thorn, what gentlemen were in the wood the night of the murder?”

“Richard Hare was there.  Otway Bethel and Locksley also.  Those were all I saw until the crowd came.”

“Were Locksley and Mr. Otway Bethel martyrs to your charms, as the other two were?”

“No, indeed!” was the witness’s answer, with an indignant toss of the head.  “A couple of poaching fellows like them!  They had better have tried it on!”

“Which of the two, Hare or Thorn, was inside the cottage with you that evening?”

Afy came out of her vanity and hesitated.  She was beginning to wonder where the questions would get to.

“You are upon your oath, witness!” thundered Mr. Justice Hare.  “If it was my—­if it was Richard Hare who was with you, say so.  But there must be no equivocation here.”

Afy was startled.  “It was Thorn,” she answered to Mr. Ball.

“And where was Richard Hare?”

“I don’t know.  He came down, but I sent him away; I would not admit him.  I dare say he lingered in the wood.”

“Did he leave a gun with you?”

“Yes.  It was one he had promised to lend my father.  I put it down just inside the door.  He told me it was loaded.”