“I do not understand what you mean,” she protested, slightly shrinking.
“Miss Leavenworth,” I pursued, “it is needless for me to tell you in what position your cousin stands. You, who remember both the form and drift of the questions put to her at the inquest, comprehend it all without any explanation from me. But what you may not know is this, that unless she is speedily relieved from the suspicion which, justly or not, has attached itself to her name, the consequences which such suspicion entails must fall upon her, and——”
“Good God!” she cried; “you do not mean she will be——”
“Subject to arrest? Yes.”
It was a blow. Shame, horror, and anguish were in every line of her white face. “And all because of that key!” she murmured.
“Key? How did you know anything about a key?”
“Why,” she cried, flushing painfully; “I cannot say; didn’t you tell me?”
“No,” I returned.
“The papers, then?”
“The papers have never mentioned it.”