"Yet I am your best friend."
"I know it, but you would shrink from me did you know the truth."
Ellis took her hand gently. "Tell me who murdered your husband?" he whispered urgently.
"I don't know! I swear I don't know!" cried the widow, with much vehemence; "if I did I would tell."
"The blood marks hint at Zirknitz."
"Yes, yes, but I am sure he is innocent. Rudolph is foolish, vain, shallow, but he never killed Edgar, I swear."
"Yet the name on the dead man's arm?"
"I don't know the reason of that; I can't say why Edgar wrote it. I read it myself, although I denied all knowledge to you. It was for Rudolph's sake that I lied. I was afraid lest he should get into trouble. I asked him if he was in Dukesfield on that night, but he denies that he was."
"And your sister Janet?"
A tremor passed through the frame of Mrs. Moxton. "She came to see me on that night, and we quarrelled; she left before Edgar came back, and, I suppose, went crying down the road to take a cab home."