A look of intense bitterness crossed the sick girl's face. She seemed to flare up all at once into a red heat of anger, as dry, withered wood will sometimes give out the fiercest flames. "What object!" she repeated. "You ask what object!—and you know how he scorned me! Didn't you wish him to die? You admitted it in court—because he stood in your way; and do you think that is anything to being humiliated—dragged in the dust, as I was?"
She leaned back panting on the pillows; the fierce flame of anger which passed over her seemed to consume her feeble strength. When she spoke again it was much more feebly. "That time when I—I went to him at the studio," she said, "I thought maybe he'd come back to me again—seeing you didn't seem to want him. I thought—but there, I was a fool. Most women are, I guess, when they care about a man. He laughed at me and said that I'd deceived myself—that it was I who did the love-making. That was a lie, but it was what he said, I guess, about most girls—when he got tired of them. I got wild, it seemed as if my brain was on fire, and I—I threatened him. He only laughed. And then I taunted him—about you; that seemed to hurt him more. I said as how you had so many beaux, you didn't care any longer about him. He said then, I was mistaken, that you were just as fond of him as ever—really, that you would do anything he wanted"—
She paused, her breath seemed to fail her. Elizabeth sat listening, stupefied, incapable of speech or motion. Amanda went on presently, huddling one word upon another: "I didn't believe him, I thought it was only to make me feel worse. And then, when I went out, I met you—the thought came to me that I'd find out the truth. I came back, I'd left the door open, I saw you give him money—but there was a look on your face that made me think you didn't do it—for love."
She paused again and struggled for breath. Elizabeth spoke involuntarily. "But how did you know," she asked, "about the pearls?"
"What, that you'd sold them?" Amanda spoke quietly, with a slight smile, as at the simplicity of the question. "I knew it the moment I saw you—that evening, and you didn't have them on. Then when I spoke of them, I saw I was right—I saw how I'd frightened you. There was a secret—I didn't know what; but it was something you were ashamed of. Then, when you got engaged to that other man, I understood—I knew you were afraid of his finding it out. I used to write to him, warning him. He never answered my letters, or paid any attention—I guess he thought I was crazy; but I had to keep on writing—I couldn't help it, somehow. I had to do everything I did. It seemed as if something urged me on. The only thing that kept me from—from having my revenge was that you might reap the benefit. And then this plan came to me, and I saw how I could—get even—with you both."
The hoarse, feeble voice grew fainter and died away, as if from sheer exhaustion. Elizabeth interposed an indignant protest. "And so," she said, "you wanted me to suffer—for your crime? You would have been glad if they had found me guilty?"
Amanda did not answer for a moment. "No," she said at last, "I didn't want you to die. I knew you'd get off—every one said so—because you were so pretty and so swell. They wouldn't"—the bitter smile again hovered about her white lips—"they wouldn't have said that about me. But—if they had found you guilty"—she paused—"I had quite made up my mind to confess. It was horrible lying here, thinking it over—I don't believe death can be worse. You couldn't have suffered—anything like it; for you were innocent."
She looked at Elizabeth with a strange horror in her eyes. Her face was ghastly, beads of perspiration stood on her forehead, and on the little rings of dark red hair, which clung about her temples. "Oh, you don't know what it is," she said, "you don't know what it is. It's the thought of that that's killing me inch by inch; it's not the disease. And yet I'm afraid—I'm afraid to confess"—her voice broke piteously. "You don't want me to—do you?—now that you've got off. It won't do you any good—any longer, and as for me, though I don't want to live, I'm afraid—to die." The feeble voice again faltered and died away.
Elizabeth sat silent, her brain in a whirl. Before her there rose the thought of the long months of torture, the prison cell, the terrible, unnecessary suspicion that still clouded her life.... If Amanda would confess, it would be something. People would never again believe her guilty. And yet!——
Mechanically, her eyes wandered about the room, the incongruous setting for this strange scene—bright, calm and peaceful; filled with the pictures of martyred saints. Her gaze lingered fascinated on the face of Christ in the engraving. It might have been the effect of the light, or the over-wrought state of her nerves which made it appear so real, instinct with mysterious life and power. Almost it seemed as if the lips moved, the sorrowful eyes rested, with a look of infinite pity, on Amanda ... ... "You won't betray me?" the feeble voice pleaded. "I trusted you—you promised? You won't break your word?"