"I have a purpose, and I'm sorry if it involves torture; but I assure you it isn't needless. I must get to the bottom of this thing. I've asked you to marry me; and I must know if my future wife—"
"But I'm not—your future wife."
"That remains to be seen. I can come to no decision—"
"But I can."
"That must wait. The point before us is this: Did, or did not, George Eveleth kill himself?"
"He did not."
"You must understand that it would prove nothing if he did."
"It would prove, or go far to prove, what you said just now—that I had made his life not worth the living."
"His money troubles may have counted for something in that. What it would do is this: it would help to corroborate Bienville's word against—yours."
"Fortunately there are means of proving that I'm right. I can't tell you exactly what they are; but I know that, in France, when people die the registers tell just what they died of."