“Then Florence and I may be happy yet,” he said; and as I looked him straight in the eye, he had the grace to look ashamed of himself, and, with a rising color, he continued: “I hope you understand me, Mr. Burroughs. No man could ask a girl to marry him if he knew that meant condemning her to comparative poverty.”
“No, of course not,” said I sarcastically. “Then I assume that, so far as you are concerned, your engagement with Miss Lloyd is not broken?”
“By no means. In fact, I could not desert her just now, when there is a—well, a sort of a cloud over her.”
“What do you mean?” I thundered. “There is no cloud over her.”
“Well, you know, the gold bag and the yellow rose leaves...”
“Be silent! The gold bag has been claimed by its owner. But you are responsible for its presence in this room! You, who brought it from the midnight train, and left it here! You, who also left the late city newspaper here! You, who also dropped two yellow petals from the rose in your buttonhole.”
Gregory Hall seemed to turn to stone as he listened to my words. He became white, then ashen gray. His hands clinched his chair-arms, and his eyes grew glassy and fixed.
I pushed home my advantage. “And therefore, traced by these undeniable evidences, I know that you are the slayer of Joseph Crawford. You killed your friend, your benefactor, your employer, in order that he might not disinherit the girl whose fortune you wish to acquire by marrying her!”
Though I had spoken in low tones, my own intense emotion made my words emphatic, and as I finished I was perhaps the more excited of the two.
For Hall's composure had returned; his face resumed its natural color; his eyes their normal expression—that of cold indifference.