"Her name! She knew her name?" cried Sara, leaning forward.
"She heard it a day or two after you had her set free, Mrs. Wrandall. Don't it beat all? Now, don't you see what might have happened if we'd let the police put the screws on her out there? Why, the chances are, a hundred to one, she would have broken down in the end, and told who this other woman is. There is where we made a fatal mistake. But it's too late now, confound it."
"Yes, it's too late now," said Sara, relaxing in her chair.
"I'm telling you this, although maybe I wasn't expected to. She made me promise not to tell the police. Well, I guess I can keep that promise. You ain't the police."
"It is a most remarkable story, Mr. Smith," said Sara, "but I do not see that it leads us anywhere. We are quite as much in the dark as before."
The detective studied the pattern in the rug at his feet, a defeated look in his eyes.
"I suppose I MIGHT have forced her to tell me, Mrs. Wrandall, but I—I didn't have the heart to bully her. I suppose you'll always have it in for me for letting the chance slip?"
"I think I have already told you, Mr. Smith, that I am not at all curious."
With the departure of the detective, the three conspirators fell into an agitated discussion of the revelations he had made; so grave had their peril appeared to be at the opening of his narrative that they were still in a state of perturbation from which they were not to recover for a long time. Their cheeks were white and their eyes were dark with the dread that remained even after the danger was past. Hetty's arms hung limp and nerveless at her sides as she lay back in the chair and stared numbly at her friends.
"Do you really believe she knew that I was the one?" she asked miserably. "Do you think she knew my name?" she shuddered.