“I’d risk more than that to learn the truth, Thalassa. It’s for Sisily’s sake. I’ve seen her. She’s in London, and I’ve come from her. She gave me this message to bring to you. She said: ‘Tell Thalassa that I ask him to tell the truth—if he knows it.’ The police are looking for her as well as me.”
“I’ve heered so.” With these words, uttered quickly, Thalassa fell into the silence of a man on his guard and pondering. Charles approached nearer.
“Thalassa,” he pleaded, “if you are keeping anything back you must tell me for Sisily’s sake.”
“How do I know you’ve seen her?” retorted Thalassa, darting a dark crafty look at him.
Charles was overwhelmed by a sense of catastrophe. Here was a possibility which had been overlooked. How was he to instil belief that he spoke the truth? A moment passed. Thalassa cast another black look at him, and turned as if to walk away. “I’ll keep my word,” he muttered to himself.
The young man’s quick ear caught the whispered sentence, and saw the way. “I’ll prove it to you,” he said. “You promised Sisily that you’d tell nobody she was at Flint House to see her father on the night he was killed. How could I know that unless I’d seen her?”
“What else?” said Thalassa, facing him with a strange and doubtful glance.
“You let her in,” Charles rapidly continued, “and you waited downstairs for her. Afterwards you took her back across the moors to catch the wagonette. It was on the way, near the cross-roads, that Sisily made you promise not to tell anybody that she’d been there that night.”
“Suppose it’s true—what then?” Thalassa’s voice was edged with the craftiest caution. “She’s sent you to me to ask for the truth, say you. ‘Twould have been safer not. What else is there to say, when she’s told you everything?” He cast a look of savage jealousy at the young man.
“Much.” Charles spoke rapidly, but his glance was despairing. “What happened while you were away from the house? What sent your wife mad? What did you find when you returned? You know these things, Thalassa.”