"You didn't pay the money yourself?" she went on. "That would hardly have done, would it? You let somebody else pay it, and washed your hands of it, I suppose."
It had been his own phrase. Her chance lighting on it seemed to make her uncannily aware of everything that had passed. How had she got hold of her information? He had not had time to think about that yet.
"I refused to pay anything," he repeated. "Nothing was paid to anybody who had anything to do with you. I refuse to discuss these affairs with you."
"Oh, do you?" she taunted him. "Will you refuse to discuss them when you are brought up on a charge of conspiracy? You will be allowed to do it through Counsel, of course. They allowed me Counsel, when I was brought up on a charge of stealing something that a member of your family stole. I wish I could have done without him. I should have liked to defend myself. But it will suit you. You can shelter behind him. You seem rather good at that."
"What do you want?" he asked her again. "What have you come here for?"
"To talk it over quietly," she said, with the same mocking intonation. "Do you want to know how I found out about it all? You seem to have forgotten entirely that I knew that somebody staying in the house at the same time that I was must have stolen the things. It wasn't very difficult, afterwards, to decide on the thief. I have a few friends still, Mr. Clinton, and I heard that your precious Susan, whom every one knew to have been head over ears in debt, had suddenly and miraculously become out of debt, and had money to throw about. I had enquiries made, and heard that the woman whom you bought—I beg your pardon, whom you made somebody else a cat's-paw to buy, so as to save your own skin, had been sent over to the other side of the water, to get her out of the way. It was the finger of Providence, I think, that led me to follow her up. I expect you have been thinking that Providence had been specially engaged in your interests; and it certainly did look like it—for a time."
Again the uncanny cognisance of his very thoughts! But this was only a very clever woman, who knew her man, and his type.
"I went over myself, and found her," she went on. "She was going West to make a start on the money that her poor fool of a husband thought had been given him for his own sweet sake. She didn't intend to undeceive him. At one time I had had an idea of going 'West' myself. You see I had been hounded out of London for the crime that one of you Clintons had committed, and as you had so chivalrously left me to bear the burden of it, and hushed up the truth, instead of clearing my name, I didn't know then that I should be able to come back again. I wanted to get away as far as possible."
He was unendurably taunted. "Your name couldn't have been cleared," he said. "You were not condemned for that; it was for stealing the other thing; and that will stick to you still."
She affected bewilderment, and then enlightenment seemed to come to her, and she laughed. "Oh, that's it, is it?" she said. "Your mind seems to run so much in twists and curves that anyone who expects a straight sense of right and wrong in honourable men must be pardoned for being a little slow in following them. But I didn't steal that either, you know. The sainted Susan stole it as well as the necklace—she was an expert in such things—and this woman Clark told my woman about it—the one who committed perjury at my trial, and is now going to suffer for it, if I can find her."