Well, he did.
“I’ve done a wicked, terrible thing. If I get what I deserve, I’m ruined and lost.”
That was what she had said to him, and he interpreted it readily enough. It was hideous to think of, but not difficult to believe. She was, he thought, capable of any imaginable thing, good or evil. She would not weigh, or calculate, or even understand; she would only want. She would want to possess something, or she would want to destroy something which irked her.
“And after all,” he thought, “it’s not a hard thing to do. Even a little, weak thing like her can—”
His mind balked at the fatal word, but, with a frown, he deliberately uttered it to himself.
“Can kill,” he said. “I’ve got to face this squarely. Other women have done things like that. A few drops of something in a glass, perhaps.”
An uncontrollable shudder ran through him.[Pg 453]
“No!” he thought. “I needn’t think—that. I’ll wait till she’s told me. The whole thing may be—some accident—something else.”
But he remembered that she had been there alone in the housekeeper’s room, and that he had heard her crying in there. He remembered her words—“a wicked, terrible thing.” And he remembered, above everything else, her face, with that look upon it.
“Damn it!” he cried. “I won’t think at all—until I know something definite. I’ll just carry on.”