But Mary Leavenworth, sinking haughtily back into her chair, stopped me with a quiet gesture.
“I beg your pardon,” said she; “but you make a mistake.
I know little or nothing of Eleanore’s personal feelings.
The mystery must be solved by some one besides me.”
I changed my tactics.
“When Eleanore confessed to you that the missing key had been seen in her possession, did she likewise inform you where she obtained it, and for what reason she was hiding it?”
“No.”
“Merely told you the fact, without any explanation?”
“Yes.”
“Was not that a strange piece of gratuitous information for her to give one who, but a few hours before, had accused her to the face of committing a deadly crime?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice suddenly sinking.
“You will not deny that you were once, not only ready to believe her guilty, but that you actually charged her with having perpetrated this crime.”
“Explain yourself!” she cried.
“Miss Leavenworth, do you not remember what you said in that room up-stairs, when you were alone with your cousin on the morning of the inquest, just before Mr. Gryce and myself entered your presence?”
Her eyes did not fall, but they filled with sudden terror.
“You heard?” she whispered.
“I could not help it.
I was just outside the door, and—”
“What did you hear?”
I told her.
“And Mr. Gryce?”
“He was at my side.”
It seemed as if her eyes would devour my face.
“Yet nothing was said when you came in?”
“No.”
“You, however, have never forgotten it?”
“How could we, Miss Leavenworth?”
Her head fell forward in her hands, and for one wild moment she seemed lost in despair.
Then she roused, and desperately exclaimed:
“And that is why you come here to-night.
With that sentence written upon your heart, you invade my presence, torture me with questions—”
“Pardon me,” I broke in; “are my questions such as you, with reasonable regard for the honor of one with whom you are accustomed to associate, should hesitate to answer?
Do I derogate from my manhood in asking you how and why you came to make an accusation of so grave a nature, at a time when all the circumstances of the case were freshly before you, only to insist fully as strongly upon your cousin’s innocence when you found there was even more cause for your imputation than you had supposed?”
She did not seem to hear me.
“Oh, my cruel fate!” she murmured. “Oh, my cruel fate!”
“Miss Leavenworth,” said I, rising, and taking my stand before her; “although there is a temporary estrangement between you and your cousin, you cannot wish to seem her enemy.
Speak, then; let me at least know the name of him for whom she thus immolates herself.
A hint from you—”
But rising, with a strange look, to her feet, she interrupted me with a stern remark:
“If you do not know, I cannot inform you; do not ask me, Mr. Raymond.”
And she glanced at the clock for the second time.
I took another turn.
“Miss Leavenworth, you once asked me if a person who had committed a wrong ought necessarily to confess it; and I replied no, unless by the confession reparation could be made.
Do you remember?”
Her lips moved, but no words issued from them.
“I begin to think,” I solemnly proceeded, following the lead of her emotion, “that confession is the only way out of this difficulty: that only by the words you can utter Eleanore can be saved from the doom that awaits her.
Will you not then show yourself a true woman by responding to my earnest entreaties?”
I seemed to have touched the right chord; for she trembled, and a look of wistfulness filled her eyes.
“Oh, if I could!” she murmured.
“And why can you not?