"You thought—I did it!" she said.
CHAPTER XLIII
IN THE LIBRARY ONCE MORE
He caught her hand as she turned from him.
"Margaret, for God's sake, hear me before you go!"
Opening the door of the library he drew her in and closed it behind them. She dropped into a chair and waited for him to speak. But it was the first time they had been there together since the reading of the will, and the benumbing influence of that hour fell on him like a nightmare. He felt that he could never make her hear. Struggle as he might for utterance, it would only be an inarticulate horrible moan at last. If he could but have heard this story before! If only the fatal words, "and shall claim the child," had been unsaid—how different all would be! How frightfully easy to utter words. How impossible to evade the avalanche of consequences they set loose!
From his place by the mantel with one arm resting on it he regarded her in silence. Neither evaded the other now. They knew by instinct that it was the final passage between them.
"Go on," she said. "Let me hear it now." Repeating, "You thought—I did it," not scornfully, nor even in reproach, but as one who is in a maze and hunting for the clue.
"For five long years you have believed me a murderess, and have given me no opportunity to vindicate myself!"