“Though I had been courageous enough up to that minute, I was seized by a sudden panic at the prospect of meeting face to face one whose hands were perhaps dripping with the blood of his victim.  To confront him there and then might mean death to me, and I did not want to die, but to live, for I am young, sirs, and not without a prospect of happiness before me.  So I sprang back, and seeing no other place of concealment in the whole bare room, crouched down in the shadow of the man you call Philemon.  For one, two minutes, I knelt there in a state of mortal terror, while the feet descended, paused, started to enter the room where I was, hesitated, turned, and finally left the house.”

“Miss Page, wait, wait,” put in the coroner.  “You saw him; you can tell who this man was?”

The eagerness of this appeal seemed to excite her.  A slight colour appeared in her cheeks and she took a step forward, but before the words for which they so anxiously waited could leave her lips, she gave a start and drew back with, an ejaculation which left a more or less sinister echo in the ears of all who heard it.

Frederick had just shown himself at the top of the staircase.

“Good-morning, gentlemen,” said he, advancing into their midst with an air whose unexpected manliness disguised his inward agitation.  “The few words I have just heard Miss Page say interest me so much, I find it impossible not to join you.”

Amabel, upon whose lips a faint complacent smile had appeared as he stepped by her, glanced up at these words in secret astonishment at the indifference they showed, and then dropped her eyes to his hands with an intent gaze which seemed to affect him unpleasantly, for he thrust them immediately behind him, though he did not lower his head or lose his air of determination.

“Is my presence here undesirable?” he inquired, with a glance towards his father.

Sweetwater looked as if he thought it was, but he did not presume to say anything, and the others being too interested in the developments of Miss Page’s story to waste any time on lesser matters, Frederick remained, greatly to Miss Page’s evident satisfaction.

“Did you see this man’s face?” Mr. Courtney now broke in, in urgent inquiry.

Her answer came slowly, after another long look in Frederick’s direction.

“No, I did not dare to make the effort.  I was obliged to crouch too close to the floor.  I simply heard his footsteps.”

“See, now!” muttered Sweetwater, but in so low a tone she did not hear him.  “She condemns herself.  There isn’t a woman living who would fail to look up under such circumstances, even at the risk of her life.”

Knapp seemed to agree with him, but Mr. Courtney, following his one idea, pressed his former question, saying: 

“Was it an old man’s step?”

“It was not an agile one.”

“And you did not catch the least glimpse of the man’s face or figure?”