“I would not willingly distress you in any way, Mrs. Parlin,” he said, with less abruptness; “but it is my duty to insist and I think it your duty to comply. Our whole search for Mr. Wing’s murderer may turn upon your answer.”
“Oh, has that come up to curse us again! has that come up!” she cried, wringing her hands. “I can’t bear it; I can’t bear it!”
Trafford was astounded at her growing agitation, and was half disposed to forego further questions, at least for the time; but behind him was the impulsion of his dread of, he scarcely knew what, driving him on to reckless impatience.
“It has come up and we can’t rid ourselves of it. Those papers were the cause of Mr. Wing’s death.”
“Those papers!” she repeated, with open lips, which scarcely moved as she spoke. “Those papers! But I hid them; no one knew where they were. Theodore did not even know of their existence.”
“You hid them!” exclaimed Trafford, thunderstruck at the statement. “They were stolen, I understand. How could you hide them?”
“Yes,” she said, like a bewildered child, admitting a fault; “they were stolen. I stole them.”
It was Trafford’s turn to sit dazed beyond the power of clear thought. She had stolen the papers to which her husband had given long months of work and thought, and on which he had hoped to build a reputation that should overpass the bounds of the State and outlive his years. She was the thief; and if report said truly, that theft had hastened his death and added bitterness to his last days!
“You can’t mean this, Mrs. Parlin,” he said gently. “I refer to the papers that were stolen from your husband’s desk some five years before he died; the papers that related to the Public Lands Office and the timber land and stumpage in Range 16; the papers that involved some men very high in the State and in the party—I won’t name them, if you please.”
She nodded assent to each of his propositions, and when he had finished said: