And to the young man’s intense relief and gratitude, she looked straight in his face with a faint smile.
“Thank you. Thank you with all my heart,” said he, hoarsely.
Nell was still very pale, but she was quite calm and composed; and after a short pause, during which the two men had watched her, wondering what she was going to propose, she suddenly sat down upon a chair and leaned upon the table, in the endeavor to hide the fact that her limbs were not as much under her control as her mind was.
“Let us think it out,” said she. And then, before either of the others had spoken, there passed suddenly over her face a sort of spasm of horror-struck remembrance, as if a half-forgotten incident had suddenly flashed into her mind with a new significance. Clifford saw that a light had broken in upon her. But instead of communicating to her companions the idea, whatever it was, which had flashed through her own brain, she raised her head very suddenly, and meeting Clifford’s eyes with a piercing look, asked:
“You have some idea, some suggestion to make. What is it?”
It was strange how the man had blustered, and the woman prepared herself to reason. Clifford sat down on the other side of the table, feeling that here was a person with whom he could discuss the matter with all reasonableness.
“I was wondering,” he said, gently, “whether you ever walked in your sleep. I know it seems an infamous thing to have dared to connect you with the matter at all—”
“That will do,” she said, gravely. “I don’t want any apologies about that. I can see, Mr. King, that the very notion makes you much more unhappy than it does me.”
The tears sprang to Clifford’s eyes. Every trace of suspicion of her honesty had melted away long since under the influence of her perfect straightforwardness.
“It’s awfully good of you,” he said, gratefully. “As I was saying, somnambulism is the only explanation possible. You must have read of such things. You must have heard that it is possible for a person to take things in his sleep and hide them away without ever being conscious of what he’s done.”