“I haven’t the least doubt about it whatsoever, if it was all as you say.”
I gave a thin, sudden cry. I couldn’t help it—it was forced from me. Then, of my own act, I pulled the cloth once more over the dead face. It had spoken to me in such a manner as its love had never expressed in life.
“You have vindicated me, my sweetheart of the old days,” I murmured. “Good-by, Dolly, till I may witness your love that is undying in another world.”
I think the doctor fancied that the trouble of the night had turned my brain. What did it matter what he thought—what anybody thought now? I stood acquitted at the bar of my own conscience. In my first knowledge of that stupendous relief I could find no place for one other sentiment but crazy gratitude.
As I stood, half-stunned in the shock of emotion, the officer I awaited entered the room bearing in his hand a slip of paper.
“The letter’s detained,” he said, “but this here’s the address it’s wrote from, and you’d better act upon it without delay.”
With a tremendous effort I swept together my scattered faculties and took it from him.
It was not much information that the paper contained—an address only from a certain “Nelson terrace” in Battersea—but such as it was I held it in common with Duke, whose sole advantage was a brief start of me.
Calling back my thanks to the friendly constable, I hurried into the street and so off and away in wild pursuit.
Still as I ran a phantom voice went with me, crying: “You did not kill him—your brother Modred.”