But now the coroner was talking very gravely to Miss Lloyd.
“Do you corroborate,” he was saying, “the statements of your maid about the flowers that were sent you last evening?”
“I do,” she replied.
“From whom did they come?”
“From Mr. Hall.”
“Mr. Hall,” said, the coroner, turning toward the young man, “how could you send flowers to Miss Lloyd last evening if you were in New York City?”
“Easily,” was the cool reply. “I left Sedgwick on the six o’clock train. On my way to the station I stopped at a florist’s and ordered some roses sent to Miss Lloyd. If they did not arrive until she was at dinner, they were not sent immediately, as the florist promised.”
“When did you receive them, Miss Lloyd?”
“They were in my room when I went up there at about ten o’clock last evening,” she replied, and her face showed her wonderment at these explicit questions.
The coroner’s face showed almost as much wonderment, and I said: “Perhaps, Mr. Monroe, I may ask a few questions right here.”
“Certainly,” he replied.
And thus it was, for the first time in my life, I directly addressed Florence Lloyd.
“When you went up to your room at ten o’clock, the flowers were there?” I asked, and I felt a most uncomfortable pounding at my heart because of the trap I was deliberately laying for her. But it had to be done, and even as I spoke, I experienced a glad realization, that if she were innocent, my questions could do her no harm.
“Yes,” she repeated, and for the first time favored me with a look of interest. I doubt if she knew my name or scarcely knew why I was there.
“And you pinned one on your gown?”
“I tucked it in among the laces at my throat, yes.”
“Miss Lloyd, do you still persist in saying you did not go downstairs again, to your uncle’s office?”
“I did not,” she repeated, but she turned white, and her voice was scarce more than a whisper.
“Then,” said I, “how did two petals of a yellow rose happen to be on the floor in the office this morning?”
VII
Yellow Roses
If anyone expected to see Miss Lloyd faint or collapse at this crisis he must have been disappointed, and as I had confidently expected such a scene, I was completely surprised at her quick recovery of self-possession.
For an instant she had seemed stunned by my question, and her eyes had wandered vaguely round the room, as if in a vain search for help.
Her glance returned to me, and in that instant I gave her an answering look, which, quite involuntarily on my part, meant a grave and serious offer of my best and bravest efforts in her behalf. Disingenuous she might be, untruthful she might be, yes, even a criminal she might be, but in any case I was her sworn ally forever. Not that I meant to defeat the ends of justice, but I was ready to fight for her or with her, until justice should defeat us. Of course she didn’t know all this, though I couldn’t help hoping she read a little of it as my eyes looked into hers. If so, she recognized it only by a swift withdrawal of her own glance. Again she looked round at her various friends.
Then her eyes rested on Gregory Hall, and, though he gave her no responsive glance, for some reason her poise returned like a flash. It was as if she had been invigorated by a cold douche.
Determination fairly shone in her dark eyes, and her mouth showed a more decided line than I had yet seen in its red curves, as with a cold, almost hard voice she replied:
“I have no idea. We have many flowers in the house, always.”
“But I have learned from the servants that there were no other yellow roses in the house yesterday.”
Miss Lloyd was not hesitant now. She replied quickly, and it was with an almost eager haste that she said:
“Then I can only imagine that my uncle had some lady visitor in his office late last evening.”
The girl’s mood had changed utterly; her tone was almost flippant, and more than one of the jurors looked at her in wonderment.
Mr. Porter, especially, cast an her a glance of fatherly solicitude, and I was sure that he felt, as I did, that the strain was becoming too much for her.
“I don’t think you quite mean that, Florence,” he said; “you and I knew your uncle too well to say such things.”
But the girl made no reply, and her beautiful mouth took on a hard line.
“It is not an impossible conjecture,” said Philip Crawford thoughtfully. “If the bag does not belong to Florence, what more probable than that it was left by its feminine owner? The same lady might have worn or carried yellow roses.”
Perhaps it was because of my own desire to help her that these other men had joined their efforts to mine to ease the way as much as possible.
The coroner looked a little uncomfortable, for he began to note the tide of sympathy turning toward the troubled girl.
“Yellow roses do not necessarily imply a lady visitor,” he said, rather more kindly. “A man in evening dress might have worn one.”
To his evident surprise, as well as to my own, this remark, intended to be soothing, had quite the opposite effect.
“That is not at all probable,” said Miss Lloyd quite angrily. “Mr. Porter was in the office last evening; if he was wearing a yellow rose at the time, let him say so.”
“I was not,” said Mr. Porter quietly, but looking amazed at the sudden outburst of the girl.
“Of course you weren’t!” Miss Lloyd went on, still in the same excited way. “Men don’t wear roses nowadays, except perhaps at a ball; and, anyway, the gold
