"Murderers!" she completed.
I shook, but bowed my head. She loosed her arm from my grasp and stood for one moment contemplating me.
"You are a powerful rival," she murmured. "He will love you just six months longer than he did me."
I summoned up at once my pride and my composure.
"And that would be just six months too long," I averred, "if he is what you declare him to be."
"What?" came from between her set teeth, and she gave a spring that brought her close to my side. "You would hate him, if I proved to you that he and his brother and his mother were the planners, if not the executors, of Mr. Barrows' death."
"Hate him?" I repeated, recoiling, all my womanhood up in arms before the fearful joy expressed in her voice and attitude. "I should try and forget such a man ever existed. But I shall not be easily convinced," I continued, as I saw her lips open with a sort of eager hope terrible to witness. "You are too anxious to kill my love."
"Oh, you will be convinced," she asserted. "Ask Dwight Pollard what sort of garments those are which lie under the boards of the old mill, and see if he can answer you without trembling."
"Garments?" I repeated, in astonishment; "garments?"
"Yes," said she. "If he can hear you ask that question and not turn pale, stop me in my mad assertions, and fear his doom no more. But if he flinches—"