She flushed with indignation. “You do not mean to ask me whether Mr. Holdfast was enamoured of a woman with whom he made secret assignations? You insult me. I thought better of you; I did not believe you capable of harbouring such a suspicion against the dead?”
“You mistake me,” said our Reporter; “no such suspicion was in my mind. My thoughts were travelling in a different direction, and I was curious to ascertain whether what has occurred to my mind has occurred to yours.”
“About this woman?” asked Mrs. Holdfast.
“Yes, about this woman.”
“I did not wish to speak of it,” said Mrs. Holdfast, after a pause, and speaking with evident reluctance; “it is the one thing in this dreadful affair I desired to keep to myself. I had a motive—yes; I did not want to do anyone an injustice. But, what can a weak woman like myself do when she is in the company of such a man as you? Nothing escapes you. It seems to me as if you had studied every little incident in connection with the murder of my poor husband for the purpose of bringing some one in guilty; but you are better acquainted than I am with the wickedness of people. You want to know what reason my husband had in taking a common lodging in Great Porter Square instead of coming home at once to me and his child. In my weak way I have thought it out. Shall I tell you how I have worked it out in my mind?”
“If you please.”
“Above everything else in the world,” said Mrs. Holdfast, looking tenderly at her baby lying in her lap, “even above his love for me, Mr. Holdfast valued the honour of his name. There is nothing he would not have sacrificed to preserve that unsullied. Well, then, after his son’s death he discovered something—who can say what?—which touched his honour, and which needed skilful management to avoid public disgrace. I can think of nothing else than that the woman, who was connected in a disgraceful way with his son, had some sort of power over my poor husband, and that he wished to purchase her silence before he presented himself to me and our baby. He came home, and took the lodgings in Great Porter Square. There this woman visited him, and there he met his death. That is all I can think of. If I try to get any further, my mind gets into a whirl. Now you know all; I have concealed nothing from you. It is my firm belief that when you discover this woman everything else will be discovered. But you will never discover her—never, never! And my poor husband’s death will never be avenged.”
“I will ask you but one more question,” said our Reporter. “In what way do you account for the circumstance of your husband not writing to you after his return to London?”
“Do you forget,” asked Mrs. Holdfast, in return, “that he had injured his hand, and that he did not wish to disclose his private affairs to a stranger?”
Here the interview terminated; and here, with the exception of the statement of three facts, our narrative ends.