"And by friends you mean confidantes, I presume?"

"Perhaps," I answered, coolly, dropping my eyes.

His voice took a deeper tone; it was steel meeting steel, he saw.

"And she told you Mr. Barrows was happy?"

"That has been already discussed," said I.

"Miss Sterling"--I think I never heard such music in a human voice--
"you think me inquisitive, presuming, ungentlemanly, persistent,
perhaps. But I have a great wish to know the truth about this
matter, if only to secure myself from forming false impressions and
wrongfully influencing others by them. Bear with me, then, strangers
though we are, and if you feel you can trust me"--here he forced me
to look at him,--"let me hear, I pray, what reasons you have for
declaring so emphatically that Mr. Barrows did not commit suicide?"

"My reasons, Mr. Pollard? Have I not already given them to you? Is
it necessary for me to repeat them?"

"No," he earnestly rejoined, charming me, whether I would or not, by
the subtle homage he infused into his look, "if you will assure me
that you have no others--that the ones you have given form the sole
foundation for your conclusions. Will you?" he entreated; and while
his eyes demanded the truth, his lip took a curve which it would
have been better for me not to have seen if I wished to preserve
unmoved my position as grand inquisitor.