Now it was a great tense surface, and the surface was somehow Captain Everard's wonderful face.

Deep down in his eyes a picture, a scene--a great place like a chamber of justice, where, before a watching crowd, a poor girl, exposed but heroic, swore with a quavering voice to a document, proved an _alibi_, supplied a link.
In this picture she bravely took her place.

"It was the 23rd." "Then can't you get it this morning--or some time to-day ?" She considered, still holding him with her look, which she then turned on her two companions, who were by this time unreservedly enlisted.

She didn't care--not a scrap, and she glanced about for a piece of paper.
With this she had to recognise the rigour of official thrift--a morsel of blackened blotter was the only loose paper to be seen.

"Have you got a card ?" she said to her visitor.