"I don't know what your object is in talking like this, but I will take it as a favour if you will let me know precisely how you connect me with my late husband's death. You say I killed him. You hint you can prove it. That's a lie, because if that was the case I should be in prison now. No! No! Mr. Damberton, you are not the man to spare a woman."
"Certainly not you, who have made my life a hell for the last few months."
"We can exchange these compliments afterwards. First your story."
Dombrain, who was growing weary of all this fencing, lost no time in responding to this request, and began at once.
"As you know, I was staying at Thornstream on the night you arrived. Ostensibly, I had come down to see Sir Rupert on business, but my real motive was to see how you intended to meet him. You did not appear at dinner, and I thought you would put off the interview until the next day. I was tired with my day's work, and was about to retire to rest when I saw you descending the stairs, upon which I hid myself, lest you should see me."
"Coward!" ejaculated Mrs. Belswin, disdainfully.
"No, I was no coward, but had I been foolish enough to have spoken to you, in one of your paroxysms of anger, you might have revealed my true position to Sir Rupert, out of spite."
Mrs. Belswin thought how she had really done this, and how ignorant the man before her was of his narrow escape from exposure--an exposure only prevented by the death of Pethram.
"Therefore," resumed Dombrain, coldly, "I hid myself, but I watched the door of the study. You entered there, and the door was closed. A long time passed--the servants put out the lights, shut up the house, and retired to rest. Miss Pethram, I have learned since, retired early on account of a headache, and as the whole Thornstream household kept country hours, by the time the clock struck ten--the hall clock I am speaking of--all the house was asleep except you, Sir Rupert, and myself. The half-hour sounded, still you had not left the study--the three-quarters struck, but the door was still closed. I waited, and waited, and wondered. Eleven sounded from the clock in the hall, and at a few minutes past the door opened, and you appeared, pale and ghastly, like a guilty spectre. Closing the door softly after you, with a furtive look round, lest some one should be watching, you fled upstairs, brushed past me, and went into your bedroom. This was all I wanted to see. I knew you had met your husband, that he had not turned you out of the house, so never dreaming that you had committed a crime to screen your real self, I went to bed. Next morning----"
He flung open his arms with a dramatic gesture, quite in keeping with the stagey way in which he had told the story, and became silent, with his small eyes viciously fastened on the unfortunate woman before him.