"It wasn't me," she said quietly. "It was that little beast, Jane
Pittaway. She heard us talking in the drawing-room."
"Oh, that was it, was it?" he said more gently. Then, scowling again, he cried fiercely:
"I'll wring her neck!"
"That's enough of that!" she said sharply. "You've talked a lot too much about wringing people's necks. And a lot of good it's done you."
"Oh, I know you believe I did it, just like everybody else. But I tell you I didn't. I swear I didn't!" he cried loudly, with a vehemence which did not convince her.
"Of course you didn't," she said in a soothing voice. "But what are you going to do if they try to make out that you did? What are you going to tell them?"
He gazed at her with miserable eyes and said in a miserable voice: "God knows what I'm to tell them. It isn't a matter of telling them. It's how to make 'em believe it. These people never believe anything; the police never do."
She gazed at him thoughtfully, with eyes compassionate and full of tenderness. They were a balm to his unhappy spirit.
The hardness slowly vanished from his face. It became merely troubled. He walked quickly across the room, dropped into the seat beside her and put an arm round her.
"You're a damned sight too good for me, Lizzie," he said in a gentler voice than she had ever heard him use before, and he kissed her.