“And I want to understand it. Tell me more of this matter.”
“Well, Mr. Stannard had told me several times of his affection for me and had told me he would remember me in his will, and, not more than a week ago, he told me of Joyce’s caring for Mr. Courtenay, though how he discovered that, I don’t know, for Joyce never showed it. She was good as gold. Well, Mr. Stannard didn’t say so in so many words, but he implied that if he and Joyce—separated—and it could be arranged,—and she—you know,—married Mr. Courtenay,—would I marry him. And I was so mad, I flew into a rage, and——”
“And scratched up your picture?”
“No, that wax plate hadn’t been drawn then. It was afterward that he drew that, and then I was madder than ever.”
“And in the heat of your passionate rage, you——”
“No, I didn’t! I tell you, whoever killed Eric Stannard, I didn’t!”
“Then what did he mean, when, in his dying moment, he said, ‘Natalie, not Joyce!’ Tell me that!”
“I will tell you,” and the girl lowered her voice and looked very serious. “I know exactly what he meant, and Joyce Stannard knows too. He meant,—you’ll think I imagine this, but it’s true; he meant that it was Natalie and not Joyce, whom he loved, and whom he was trying to beckon to at that moment.”
It was impossible to doubt the honesty of the speaker. The great earnest eyes were filled with mingled pain and shame, but the girl meant what she said.
“I know it,” she went on. “You see, he had said to me, several times, ‘Natalie, not Joyce,’ by way of a teasing bit of love-making. Eric was not a bad man, it was only that he could not keep from making love to any woman he might chance to be with. And when I would reprimand him and bid him go to his wife, he would laugh and say ‘Natalie, not Joyce,’ till it became a sort of by-word with him. And I know that’s what he meant that night, when he was hurt,—he didn’t know he was dying,—and he called to me in a half-conscious plea to come to his assistance. Also, he could see me more plainly. Joyce was rather behind him, and his clouding brain spoke out as he saw me, and called for me. As a matter of fact, that speech, though made so much of, means nothing at all. He wasn’t entirely conscious and he spoke as one in a dream. But he did not mean that I had stabbed him.”