"Then it was your hand—" he impetuously began.
"Which disturbed these garments before you? Yes. And I shall make no apology for the action," I continued, "since it was done in the hope of proving false certain insinuations which had been made to me in your regard."
"Insinuations?" he repeated.
"Yes," I declared, in an agony between my longing to hear him vindicate himself and the desire to be true to the obligations I was under to Ada Reynolds. "Insinuations of the worst, the most terrible, character." Then, as I saw him fall back, stricken in something more than his pride, I hastened to inquire: "Have you an enemy in town, Mr. Pollard?"
He composed himself with a start, looked at me fixedly, and replied in what struck me as a strange tone even for such an occasion as this:
"Perhaps."
"One who out of revenge," I proceeded, "might be induced to attach your name to suspicions calculated to rob you of honor, if not life?"
"Perhaps," he again returned; but this time with a fierceness that almost made me recoil, though I knew it was directed against some one besides myself.
"Then it may be," I said, "that you have but to speak to relieve my mind of the heaviest weight which has ever fallen upon it. These articles," I pursued, "have they, or have they not, any connection with the tragedy which makes the place in which we stand memorable?"
"I cannot answer you, Miss Sterling."