"No," I answered hoarsely. "I cannot tell you. I will have no more to do with it. The matter is over—let it rest,"
"But, my poor boy," she said quietly, "it will not be allowed to rest. Can't you see that this girl's statement does away with the theory that he was washed up from the sea? He met with his death there on the sands. He left Braster to visit you, and he was found within a few yards of your cottage dead, and with marks of violence upon him. You will be suspected, perhaps charged. It is inevitable. Now tell me the truth. Was Mostyn Ray in Braster at the time?"
"He lectured that night in the village," I answered.
Her eyes gleamed with a strange fire.
"I knew it!" she exclaimed. "I have him at last, then. I saw him falter when I spoke of your father. Guy, I will save you, but I would give the rest of my days to bring this home to Mostyn Ray."
I shook my head.
"You will never do it," I declared. "There might be suspicion, but there will never be any proof. If there was any murder done at all, it was done without witnesses."
"We shall see about that," she muttered. "There is what you call circumstantial evidence. It has hanged people before now."
We remained silent for several moments. All this time she was watching me.
"Guy," she said softly, "you are very like what he was—at your age."