"Tell him," he directed the waiter, to stay where he is. Tell him
I may want to go back to the office any minute." He turned eagerly
to the girl. "I'm sorry," he said. With impatience he crumpled the
note into a ball and glanced about him. At his feet was a
waste-paper basket. Fixed upon him he saw, while pretending not to
see, the eyes of Mrs. Earle burning with suspicion. If he destroyed
the note, he knew suspicion would become certainty. Without an
instant of hesitation, carelessly he tossed it intact into the
waste- paper basket. Toward Rose Gerard he swung the revolving
chair.

"Go on, Please," he commanded.

The girl had now reached the climax of her story, but the eyes of
Mrs. Earle betrayed the fact that her thoughts were elsewhere. With
an intense and hungry longing, they were concentrated upon her own
waste-paper basket.

The voice of the girl in anger and defiance recalled Mrs. Earle to
the business of the moment.

"He tried to kill me," shouted Miss Rose. "And his shooting himself
in the shoulder was a bluff. THAT'S my story; that's the story I'm
going to tell the judge "--her voice soared shrilly -- "that's the
story that's going to send your brother-in-law to Sing Sing!"

For the first time Mrs. Earle contributed to the general
conversation.

"You talk like a fish," she said.