"What was the tenor of the conversation?"

"To the effect that I must break the engagement."

"Which you refused to do?"

"I did."

Her cheeks were scarlet now, but a determined note had crept into
her voice, and she looked at her betrothed husband with an air of
affectionate pride that, it seemed to me, ought to lift any man
into the seventh heaven. But I noted Mr. Hall's expression with
surprise. Instead of gazing adoringly at this girl who was thus
publicly proving her devotion to him, he sat with eyes cast down,
and frowning--positively frowning--while his fingers played
nervously with his watch-chain.

Surely this case required my closest attention, for I place far
more confidence in deductions from facial expression and tones of
the voice, than from the discovery of small, inanimate objects.

And if I chose to deduce from facial expressions I had ample
scope in the countenances of these two people.

I was particularly anxious not to jump at an unwarrantable
conclusion, but the conviction was forced upon me then and there
that these two people knew more about the crime than they
expected to tell. I certainly did not suspect either of them to
be touched with guilt, but I was equally sure that they were not
ingenuous in their testimony.