"I don't know, I can't explain it, but—I know I am innocent. You say I had a motive for this crime. You're mistaken, I had no motive."
"Passion and jealousy have stood as motives for murder from the beginning of time."
"There was no passion and no jealousy," answered Lloyd steadily.
"Are you mocking me?" cried the judge. "What is there in these letters," he touched the packet before him, "but passion and jealousy? Didn't you give up your position in America for this woman?"
"Yes, but——"
"Didn't you follow her to Europe in the steerage because of your infatuation? Didn't you bear sufferings and privations to be near her? Shall I go over the details of what you did, as I have them here, in order to refresh your memory?"
"No," said Kittredge hoarsely, and his eye was beginning to flame, "my memory needs no refreshing; I know what I did, I know what I endured. There was passion enough and jealousy enough, but that was a year ago. If I had found her then dining with a man in a private room, I don't know what I might have done. Perhaps I should have killed both of them and myself, too, for I was mad then; but my madness left me. You seem to know a great deal about passion, sir; did you ever hear that it can change into loathing?"
"You mean—" began the judge with a puzzled look, while Mrs. Wilmott recoiled in dismay.
"I mean that I am fighting for my life, and now that she has admitted this thing," he eyed the woman scornfully, "I am free to tell the truth, all of it."
"That is what we want," said Hauteville.