His hand fell like iron on her arm.
"You need not appeal to Miss Sterling," he remarked. "I am asking you this question, and I am not a man to be balked nor frightened by you when my life itself is at stake. What night was it on which you saw me place Mr. Barrows in the vat? I command you to tell me, or——"
His hands closed on her arm, and—she did not scream, but I did; for the look of the inquisitor was in his face, and I saw that she must succumb, or be broken like a reed before our eyes.
She chose to succumb. Deadly pale and shaking with the terror with which he evidently inspired her, she turned like a wild creature caught in the toils, and gasped out:
"It was a night in August—the seventeenth, I think. I wish you and your brother much joy of the acknowledgment."
He did not answer, only dropped her arm, and, looking at me, remarked:
"I think that puts a different face upon the matter."
It did indeed. For Mr. Barrows had only been dead four days, and to-day was the twenty-eight of September.
* * * * *
I do not know how long it was before I allowed the wonder and perplexity which this extraordinary disclosure aroused in me to express itself in words. The shock which had been communicated to me was so great, I had neither thought nor feeling left, and it was not till I perceived every eye fixed upon me that I found the power to say: