"Dora"--Allen again seized her hands--"you are sacrificing yourself to save me?"
"I can do no less, Allen. I love you. Ah!" she cried, with a burst of tears, "you will never know how I love you. I have suffered from your cruelty, your desertion, from your strange silence, but I still love you, as I have always done. As I cannot be your wife and make you happy, I can still marry this man and save you from the consequences of your crime."
"Dora! You do not believe that I am guilty?"
"No, Allen, no; still, I cannot understand. You have refused me your confidence; you say you were mad on that night. Morally speaking, you are innocent, I am certain. But still, in a moment of anger----"
"I swear that I did not touch him!" cried Allen violently. "I admit that I was at the Red House on that night. He asked me to come."
"I guessed that. Joad posted a letter to you."
"Yes, yes. Wait!" He ran into the next room, wherein his desk was standing, and in two minutes he returned with a paper. "This is his letter. You see, Edermont asked me to come at midnight to the Red House--to enter by the postern gate, which he left open for my admittance."
"He wished to add something to the conversation of the week before," said Dora, reading the letter. "But, my poor Allen, this letter rather condemns than saves you. It shows conclusively that you had an appointment at the Red House at midnight. And Mr. Edermont was killed at one o'clock."
"I don't know at what hour he was killed," rejoined Allen, taking back the letter with a gloomy air. "As I told you, I was mad on that night. I lost all idea of time. Whether I was in his study at twelve or one I cannot say, but when I did enter I saw him dead."
"Allen!" Dora uttered a cry of horror. "You saw him dead?"