permissible in murder cases, he must, perforce, remain locked up until
his indictment and trial. He was transferred from the witness room of
police headquarters, the day of the funeral, to the less pleasant jail,
and put in a cell, as were the other unfortunates of that institution.

Jay Kenneth, Darcy's lawyer, a young member of the bar, but
enthusiastic and a hard worker, had made a formal entry of a plea of
not guilty for his client, when the latter had been arraigned before
the upper court, and had asked for a speedy trial.

And so, after the first few days of wonder and surmise and of
speculation as to whether Darcy or King might have committed the crime,
or perhaps some desperate burglar, the Darcy case was crowded off the
front page of the newspapers to give way to items of more or less local
interest in Colchester.

Up and down the narrow cell paced James Darcy. His head was bowed, but
at times he raised it to look out through the barred door. All his
eyes encountered, though, was the white-washed wall opposite him--a
bare, white and glaring wall that made his eyes burn--a wall that
seemed to shut out hope itself--as if it were not enough that it had
been at the very bottom of Pandora's box.

Up and down, down and up, now pausing to take his hands from their
strained position clasped behind his back that they might grasp the
cold bars of his cell door--slim white hands that had set many a
gleaming jewel in burnished gold or cold, glittering platinum, that it
might grace the person of some sweet woman. And now those white
fingers grasped cold steel, and a keeper, passing up and down on his
half-hourly rounds, wondered, grimly, if they had been stained with the
blood of Mrs. Darcy.

But though the wall blocked his vision, Darcy saw through and beyond
it. He saw the glittering showcases in the store, with their arrays of
cut glass and silver. He saw the gleaming jewels in the safe.

He saw, too, the stained and keen paper knife which the drunken King
had swaggered in to claim that gray morning. He saw the red spot on
the floor--the spot which, even now, in spite of many scrubbings, was
visible to the men and women who, now that the store was opened for
business again, walked in to select some piece of gold or silver, some
jewel for their own adornment or that of another.

And the gray-haired woman, whose pride it had been to display her
beautiful wares to her friends and others, was all alone in a grave far
up on the hill--a hill which looked down on Colchester--which looked
down on the very store itself.

All of this James Darcy saw, and more.

There was a brisker step along the flagged corridor in front of the
cells of "murderers' row." Half a dozen men, and one woman, against
whom such a charge had been made--Darcy among them--looked up with an
interest they had not shown before. Did it mean a visitor for any of
them? Did it mean their lawyer was coming to bid them cheer up, or to
tell them it looked black for their chances?

The step was that of the keeper of the outer gate--the larger and more
massively barred gate which gave entrance to the anteroom where, on
visiting days, even those charged with the highest degree of crime were
permitted to see their friends, relatives or counsel.

"Some one to see you, Darcy!" called the keeper.

There was the clang of the lock mechanism, and the door swung open.
Darcy's eyes brightened, those of the others in the same tier of cells
with him which, for the moment had lighted up, grew dull again.

"My lawyer?" asked Darcy.

"Yes. And there's a lady with him."

"A lady?"

"Yes. Come on!"

Darcy caught sight of Amy before she saw him, for he approached from
behind a line of other prisoners exercising in the space before their
cells. She was with Kenneth.

"Amy!" exclaimed Darcy, as he was allowed to step out into the
anteroom, closely followed by a keeper, while a detective from the
prosecutor's office stood near. "Amy!" and his eyes flowed.

"Jimmie boy!"

To the eternal credit of the keeper and the detective be it said that,
at this moment, they found something of great interest in the calendar
that hung on the opposite wall, while Kenneth talked earnestly with the
warden. And the prisoners beyond the barred door were too busy with
their exercise to look around.

"Jimmie boy!"

"Amy! You--you don't--"

"Of course I don't! Didn't I tell you so in my letter?"

"Yes, but--"



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