She did it in the presence of a witness, and, although she was unaware of it, her statement was taken down by a hidden stenographer." "Then why did she commit suicide ?" blurted Collins, as if her death contradicted the detective's statement.
"She betrayed you because you had betrayed her.

She thought you and your wife had become reconciled.

Then, when she received your note--the one that Beard brought her--she believed you meant, after all, to marry her.
In a fit of remorse at having betrayed you, she killed herself." "Why do you tell me this ?" asked Collins suspiciously.
"To show you what an overwhelming mass of evidence we have against you.
And to give you a last opportunity to explain." Collins's eyes traveled about the room, lingering on the various objects that were so intimately associated with the woman whom he had thought so loyal.
"So she too was ready to turn against me!" He shook his head in a self-pitying way.

"The one person who, I thought, would never desert me!" His eyes took on a fixidity, as if gazing at a distant object.
"Money gone!" he murmured, as if talking to himself.

"Girl dead--a traitor! Home broken! What's the use ?" The others watched him silently, breathlessly, their eyes lighted with eager expectancy.