“But Perkins was shaken beyond words.”
“Yes, because it meant that though the peddler was dead, the power behind him still operated.”
Mrs. Millicent got up unsteadily. “Jean, dear, I’ll have to leave you to talk the rest of this over alone. I’m sorry, darling, but—but—”
She went out hurriedly, and the girl was silent for a moment.
“Please don’t be upset about mother, and really it’s much better.” She put her hand impulsively on his. “Do you begin to see what it has meant to carry the mystery and the terror alone? She could not help me, and I’m glad for her sake.” She looked in his eyes with such utter confidence and appeal that he thought his heart would break.
“Oh, my dear, my dear,” he whispered, “you don’t know yet how well I understand. It will take all my life to show you.”
Jean turned pale, and from her parted lips came a little sigh of content that, faint as it was, penetrated his very soul. Then she breathed quickly, smiling at him as though she thanked him for a perfect understanding, and for knowing her spirit so well that he could afford not to say more.
“Is it not possible,” she continued quietly—“and of course it is possible; we both realize it—that Martin was unconsciously guilty? I mean that not till after it had happened did he realize what had taken place. If Blunt could dominate him yesterday, why not then?”
“Stranger things have happened,” he admitted.
“Well, if that’s the case it also explains Martin’s helplessness and Perkins’ silence. She knows that Martin did it while under this influence, while they both know that, now Blunt is dead, the influence cannot be proved. It would sound like a fairy-story in court.”