Perth Amboy evening news., 1911-06-08
The House
of the
Whispering
Pines
(Continued.)
By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN
Copyright. 1910, by Anna Katharine
Rohlfs

But in other respects he drove me
hard An effort was made by him
first of all to discredit me as a wit
ness. My lack of appreciation for
Adelaide and my secret but absorbing
love for Carmel were inexorably
brought out; also the easy, happy-go-
lucky tenor of my life and my logged
persistence in any course I thought
consistent with my happiness. My
character was well known in this
town of my birth, and it would have
been folly for me to attempt to gloss
it over. l had not even the desire to
do so. If my sins exacted penance l
would pay it here and now and to the
full. Only Carmel should not suffer.
I refused to admit that she had given
any evidences or returning my reck-
less passion. My tongue would not
speak the necessary words, and it was
not made to-. 1t was not her charac-
fer, but mine, which Mr.. Moffat was
d leavoring to assail.
But though l was thus shown up
for what l was, in a most
public and undesirable, neither the
rulings of the court nor the attitude
of the jury betrayed any loss of con-
fdence In me as q credible witness,
and, seeing this, the willy lawyer shift
ed his ground and confined himself to
an endeavor to shake me on certain
definite and important points concern
Ing my finding of the body. Then be
branched off into a less narrowing
topic and cross examined me in re-
gard to the ring. I had said that 1t
was on her hand when l babe goodby
to her in her own house and that 1t
was not there when l came upon her
dead. Had the fact made me curious
TO examine the hand? No. Then l
could not tell whether the finger on
which she wore it gave any evidence
of this ring having been pulled off
with violence? No. I could not swear
that in my opinion it was? l could
not.
The small flask of cordial and the
thu glasses, one clean and he 9TH
ers showing signs of having been used,
were next taken up, but with no re-
suit for the defense. | had told all L
knew about these in my direct eXami-
nation; also about such matters as the
bottles found on the kitchen table, the
leaving of my keys at the Cumberland
house and the fact, well known, that
the two bottles of wine left In the wine
vault and tabulated by the steward as
so left in the list found in my apart
ments were of an exclusive brand I'M
likely to be found anywhere else in
town. 1 could add nothing more, and
having spoken the exact truth con-
corning them from the very first, I ran
no chance of contradicting myself,
even under the close fire Of the oppos-
Ing counsel.
But there was a matter l dreaded to
see him approach and which, l was
equally sure, with an insight unshared,
I believe, by any one else In the whole
courtroom, was equally dreaded by the
prisoner.
. This was the presence In he club
house chimney Of the half burned let
ter l had long ago been compelled IN
M own defense to acknowledge hav-
ing written to the victims young SIS
ter, Carmel Cumberland. AS l saw
District Attorney Fox about to enter
Upon this topic I gathered myself to-
gear to meet the onslaught, for In
this matter l could not be strictly
truthful, since the least slip on my
part might awaken the whole world to
the fact that it could only have come
there through the agency Of Carmel
herself.
What Mr.. Moffatt thought Of It
what he hoped to prove in the prison
er's behalf by raking this subject over
it was left for me to discover later.
The prisoner was an innocent man In
his eyes. I was not, and, while the
time had not come for him to make
this openly apparent, he was not above
showing even now that the case con-
tanned a factor which weakened the
prosecution-a factor totally disasso-
eiated with the only accented theory