“You don't believe Harry did it, do you?” Viola asked appealingly.
Colonel Ashley did not answer for a moment. Then he said slowly:
“My dear Viola, if some one were ill of a desperate disease, in which the crisis had not yet been passed, you would not expect a physician to say for certainty that such a person was to recover, would you?”
“No.”
“Well, I am in much the same predicament. I am a sort of physician in this mystery case. It has only begun. The crisis is still far off, and nothing can be said with certainty. I prefer not to express an opinion.”
“I'm not afraid!” cried Viola. “I know Harry Bartlett is not guilty!”
“If he is not—who then?” asked the colonel.
“Oh, I don't know! I don't know what to think! I suspect—No, I mustn't say that—Oh, I'm almost distracted!” And, with sobs shaking her frame, Viola Carwell rushed from the room.
Colonel Ashley looked after her for a moment, as though half of a mind to follow, and then, slowly shaking his head, he again picked up the paper he had been reading, delving through a maze of technical poisoning detection formulae, from Vortmann's nitroprusside test to a consideration of the best method of estimating the toxicity of chemical compounds by blood hemolysis. The reporter and young Dr. Baird certainly left little to the imagination.
Colonel Ashley read until rather late that evening, and his reading was not altogether from Izaak Walton's “Compleat Angler.” He delved into several books, and again read, very carefully, the article on the effects of various poisons as it appeared in the paper he had been glancing over when Viola talked with him.