"No! on my soul, no!" cried the Major, beginning to walk to and fro, "I only want to see her happy. She was happy here," he added, as Gerald laughed unpleasantly. "She was happy until you came and disturbed her poor brain."
"Her very clever brain!" contradicted the young man acidly. "Pshaw! Major, am I a fool that you should talk to me in this way? Whatever you may state to the outside world, for the sake of your illegal income, you know perfectly well that Mavis is perfectly sane."
"She is not! Would she have killed Bellaria if sane?"
"Oh, you are trying to keep up that fiction also?"
"It is not fiction," insisted Rebb, obviously in earnest. "I will admit that the girl's brain was stronger than I chose to tell anyone outside this room. All the same, I believe that, weary of being shut up, she tried to escape on that night. Bellaria came to stop her, and Mavis then must have stabbed her. Remember, Bellaria had Geary's knife."
"Do you really believe this?" asked Gerald, quite puzzled.
"I swear that I do! Come, Haskins, let us talk plainly, since there is no one to hear us. Don't you believe it yourself?"
"No, I do not! You, if anyone, killed Bellaria."
"Why should I?"
"Because you knew that I would take the girl away and marry her. To put her presumed insanity beyond all doubt you murdered Bellaria, and placed the crime on the poor girl's shoulders. In this way, should she be found, you secure her income for life, since she cannot marry."