“But I can’t go on, if you look like that! All logic and deduction fly out of my head, and I can think only of poetry and romance. And it won’t do! At least, not now. Can’t you try to give a more successful imitation of a coroner’s jury?”

Kitty tried to look stupid and wise, both at once, and only succeeded in looking bewitching.

“It’s no use,” said Fessenden; “I can’t sit facing you, as I would the real thing in the way of juries. So I’ll sit beside you, and look at the side of that distant barn, while we talk.”

So he turned partly round, and, fixing his gaze on the stolid red barn, said abruptly:

“Who wrote that paper?”

“I don’t know,” said Kitty, feeling that she couldn’t help much here.