"You took so long to wake!" said she.
"What o'clock is it?" I asked.
"Three. Three of the morning; but speak low, or rather listen! Listen, and while you listen look at me, so that I may know." She seated herself on a chair close to mine, and leant forward, speaking in a whisper. "On the night of the sixth of October I went to the shed on Castle Down and had word with Cullen Mayle. Returning I passed you, brushed against you. So much you have maintained before. But listen, listen! That night you climbed into Cullen's bedroom and fell asleep, and you woke up in the dark middle of the night."
"Stop! stop!" I whispered, and seized her hands in mine. Horror was upon me now, and a hand of ice crushing down my heart. I did not reason or argue at that moment. I knew--her face told me--she had been after all ignorant of what she had done that night. "Stop; not a word more--there is no truth in it."
"Then there is truth in it," she answered, "for you know what I have not yet told you. It is true, then--your waking up--the silk noose! My God! my God!" and all the while she spoke in a hushed whisper, which made her words ten times more horrible, and sat motionless as stone. There was not even a tremor in the hands I held; they lay like ice in mine.
"How do you know?" I said. "But I would have spared you this! You did not know, and I doubted you. Of course--of course you did not know. Good God! Why could not this secret have lain hid in me? I would have spared you the knowledge of it. I would have carried it down safe with me into my grave."
Her face hardened as I spoke. She looked down and saw that I held her hands; she plucked them free.
"You would have kept the secret safe," she said, steadily. "You liar! You told it this night to Cullen Mayle."
Her words struck me like a blow in the face. I leaned back in my chair. She kept her eyes upon my face.
"I--told it--to Cullen Mayle?" I repeated.