She brought her hands together and faced him with a noble dignity which at once put the interview on a different footing.
"Where was this vial found?" she demanded.
He found it difficult to answer. They seemed to have exchanged positions. When he did speak it was in a low tone and with less confidence than he had shown before.
"In the bed with the old lady. I saw it there myself. Mr. Worthington was with me. Nobody else knows anything about it. I wished to give you an opportunity to explain. I begin to think you can—but how, God only knows. The box was hidden in your hair from early evening. I saw your hand continually fluttering toward it all the time we were dancing in the parlor."
She did not lose an iota of her dignity or pride.
"You are right," she said. "I put it there as soon as I took it from the cabinet. I could think of no safer hiding-place. Yes, I took it," she acknowledged as she saw the flush rise to his cheek. "I took it; but with no worse motive than the dishonest one of having for my own an object which bewitched me; I was hardly myself when I snatched it from the shelf and thrust it into my hair."
He stared at her in amazement, her confession and her attitude so completely contradicted each other.
"But I had nothing to do with the vial," she went on. And with this declaration her whole manner, even her voice changed, as if with the utterance of these few words she had satisfied some inner demand of self-respect and could now enter into the sufferings of those about her. "This I think it right to make plain to you. I supposed the vial to be in the box when I took it, but when I got to my room and had an opportunity to examine the deadly trinket, I found it empty, just as you found it when you took it from my hair. Some one had taken the vial out before my hand had ever touched the box."
Like a man who feels himself suddenly seized by the throat, yet who struggles for the life slowly but inexorably leaving him, Sinclair cast one heartrending look toward the conservatory, then heavily demanded:
"Why were you out of your room? Why did they have to look for you? And who was the person who uttered that scream?"