"Can you remember her love?" asked Mr. Cass, doubtfully.
"Now I can." He raised his hand to his forehead. "It all comes back to me--all. That dream has given me the key to the past, and the memories of my childhood rush back upon me. I know how I hated my father"--his face grew dark--"and I know, also, how badly he treated my mother. If she killed him, she did right."
Mr. Cass shuddered. "I quite believe all that," he said, drily. "You were born hating your father, and your mother taught you to look upon him as your worst enemy. That you should deem her action in killing him a right one is exactly what you would believe, having regard to your childish feelings towards him. Indeed, I believe that had you grown up while your father was still in existence you would have killed him yourself."
"Very probably," remarked Neil, just as drily. "Indeed. I did try!"
"What? I don't understand!"
"I daresay not, seeing my mother kept silence from the time of her arrest. But I remember that on the night my father was murdered at the Turnpike House I flew at him with a knife. I forgot all that took place after that, except that I was in the room and saw his dead body lying under the open window--the open window," he repeated, quietly, and with significance. "Do not forget that, Mr. Cass."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that someone else might have killed him. The window was open. Why should it have been open unless the true murderer had gained entrance by it, and had fled through it when his deed was accomplished? I do not believe that my mother is guilty, in spite of her silence. She has some reason for holding her tongue."
"I can't think what the reason can be," replied Mr. Cass, wearily, leaning his head on his hands. "For love of you she would have chosen to remain free; yet when a word--according to you--might have saved her, she held her tongue and risked the gallows."
For the first time Neil Webster shuddered. "How was it she escaped that?" he asked, in a low voice.