"Let me begin at the beginning, and go on to the end. Don't interrupt, Anthony." And then she related her adventures. Ackworth held his peace until she detailed her recognition of Osip, when he jumped with a muttered oath.
"Why did you not have him arrested?" he cried; "everything would then have been discovered."
"Yes--even to the fact that Ferdy is implicated in these terrible crimes," said Clarice, sarcastically.
Ackworth jumped again. Her revelations were getting on his nerves. "What do you mean?" he asked, irritably.
"Let me go on from where I saw Osip," said Clarice, and continued her recital up to the point when she fainted in Ferdy's bedroom with the stamp in her hand. "Now, what do you say?" she asked, breathlessly.
"I don't know what to say," muttered Ackworth, much agitated. "It looks as though Ferdy knew something. Yet if he was locked in his room, he could not have murdered Horran."
"Oh, I don't for one moment believe that he did. But, having the stamp, he might have impressed the Purple Fern on----"
"Nonsense," interrupted the soldier, violently.
"He was drunk and incapable--he was locked in."
Clarice looked down. "Anthony," she said, in a pained voice, "I have tried to fight against my doubts of Ferdy, but they will come. He is so weak, so tricky, so deceitful, and so carried away by his own selfish impulses, that he is capable of all things."