"You need not," Ralph said. "I can do that in good time. From the first I knew you, from the first I have dogged you from room to room at night and frustrated your designs. Then came Tchigorsky, who finished the task for me. Need I say more?"
Marion moved towards the door. The imploring look had gone from her face; her eyes had grown sad and hopeless. And yet in the face of her confession, in face of the knowledge of her crimes, not one of them had the slightest anger for her.
"I am going," she said. "In the event of this happening, I had made my plans. It may be that I shall have to take my trial; it may be that I shall be spared. One thing you may be certain of—my mother will never stand in the dock."
Ralph rose and slipped quietly from the room.
"If she dies, if anything happens to her," Marion went on, "it may be possible to spare me. Nobody knows anything to my dishonor outside the family but Dr. Tchigorsky, and you can rely upon his silence. If my mother is no more there need be no scandal. Farewell, farewell to you all! Oh, if Heaven had been good to me, and sent me here as a little child, then what a happy life might have been mine!"
She passed out of the room and nobody made any attempt to detain her. It was a long, long time before anybody spoke and no voice was raised above a whisper. The shock was stupendous. In none of their past sorrows and troubles had their feelings been more outraged.
The cloud lay heavy upon them all; it would be a long while before it passed away. Ravenspur rose at length, his face white and worn.
"We can do no good here," he said. "Perhaps sleep will bring us merciful relief."
It was at this moment that Symonds looked in with her information. It was no shock, because all were past being shocked. Vera cried on Geoffrey's shoulder.