The man's look darted feverishly between the two girls—Genevieve well-nigh overcome, while the smile on Belle's handsome face quickly gave way to an expression of bewilderment, and then to a dawning one of alarm. Next she rushed into the room, and stopped abruptly. Bending a look of anxious inquiry first upon her cousin and then upon me, she finally confronted her father.
"Papa," she faltered, her voice quaking with the fear that suddenly gripped her heart, "what is it? What does this mean?" Then, as she started blindly toward him, she uttered one piercing, agonizing cry: "Papa!"
Unconsciously he brushed aside her beseeching arms. He did not answer her directly; his words were a response to the charge that I had not yet made.
"Man, you are right," he said huskily, "it is my conscience. It is not you that accuse me, but the pure eyes of these two innocent girls—the unspoken reproach of that broken, white-haired woman who sits in silence up-stairs—those fling the charge into my face—sear it into my very soul—every minute of the day and night.
"Take me. I am guilty. It was I who killed Felix Page."
CHAPTER XXV
"THIMBLE, THIMBLE——"
It is needless to dwell upon the scene in Alfred Fluette's study; I shall take up merely such details as constitute an integral part of this memoir, and hurry along.
After Genevieve had led Belle away, Mr. Fluette quickly mastered himself. The bitter moment of the confession once passed, it seemed as if his mind had been relieved of a great burden, and he talked to me with comparative unreserve. But his appearance was in pitiable contrast with what it must have been before he wandered into devious ways. He was crushed, his mien one of hopeless submission to whatever the future might have in store for him.