"Can't you guess?" cried Miriam vehemently. "They suspect you of the murder!"
He jumped from the sofa, and looked round wildly.
"Is—is my—do they know my name?" he asked harshly.
"No; that is, they know your first name, not your other. They think it's 'Tracey'—Jabez Tracey. I told them so."
"Go on; what description have they?"
"Small and dark, in fact in every respect the opposite of what you are. About to leave, I said, for New York, via Liverpool. Oh, Jabez, you don't know how hard it was to do it, but I did it to screen you—to keep you safe!"
"How on earth did you get at them?—how did they come to suspect me?"
"We were followed, and our conversation overheard that night in the churchyard. I knew it was dangerous, Jabez, I told you so. Mrs. Darrow hated me. It was she who did it. She listened to everything hidden away somewhere. She taxed me to my face with being implicated in the murder of Mr. Barton and the theft of his will. So I thought it best to go straight to Inspector Prince at Southampton, and put the whole thing before him. I told him how I had met you, and even what you had said—that you would kill Mr. Barton if he interfered with you. I knew she would make capital out of that. But I made it quite clear to him that you had had no provocation from Mr. Barton, and of course from the description I gave of you I knew they were not very likely to find you."
"You don't believe I killed him, Miriam?"
"No, dear, I never did. But that woman heard you say you would."