“I suppose you can hardly tell when that was?”

“Yes, it was the day before you went away to Lord Keith’s wedding,” said Rose, looking to the Colonel.

“Had you seen him before?”

“Twice when I was out by myself, but it frightened me so that I never looked again.”

“Can you give me any guide to the time?”

She was clear that it had been after Colonel Keith’s first stay at Avonmouth, but that was all, and being asked if she had ever mentioned these meetings, “Only when Colonel Keith saw how frightened I was, and asked me.”

“Why were you frightened?” asked Mr. Grey, on a hint from the Colonel.

“Because I could not quite leave off believing the dreadful things Mr. Maddox and Maria said they would do to me if I told.”

“Told what?”

“About Mr. Maddox coming and walking with Maria when she was out with me,” gasped Rose, trying to avert her head, and not comforted by hearing Mr. Grey repeat her words to those tormentors of her infancy.

A little encouragement, however, brought out the story of the phosphoric letters, the lions, and the vision of Maddox growling in the dressing-room.  The date of the apparition could hardly be hoped for, but fortunately Rose remembered that it was two days before her mamma’s birthday, because she had felt it so bard to be eaten up before the fete, and this date tallied with that given by Maria of her admitting her treacherous admirer into the private rooms.

“The young lady may be precocious, no doubt, sir,” here said the accused, “but I hardly see why she has been brought here.  You can attach no weight to the confused recollections of so young a child, of matters that took place so long ago.”

“The question will be what weight the jury will attach to them at the assizes,” said Mr. Grey.

“You will permit me to make one inquiry of the young lady, sir.  Who told her whom she might expect to see here?”

Mr. Grey repeated the query, and Rose answered, “Nobody; I knew my aunt and the Colonel and Lady Temple were gone in to Avoncester, and Aunt Ermine got a note from the Colonel to say that I was to come in to him with Tibbie in a fly.”

“Did you know what you were wanted for?”

“No, I could not think.  I only knew they came to get the woman punished for being so cruel to the poor little girls.”

“Do you know who that person was?”

“Mrs. Rawlins,” was the ready answer.

“I think,” said Mr. Grey to the accused, “that you must perceive that, with such coincidence of testimony as I have here, I have no alternative but to commit you for the summer assizes.”